si;-- 


REESE  LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


,  IQO     . 
Accession  No.     83596      .   Class  No. 


ff 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 


A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 


AN    ESSAY 


IX 


METAPHYSICAL   SYSTEM   UPON   THE   BASIS 


OF 


HUMAN   COGNITIVE   EXPERIENCE 


BY 

GEORGE   TRUMBULL   LADD 

ii 

PROFESSOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY    IN   YALE    UNIVERSITY 


UNIVERSITY 


NEW    YORK 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

1899 


•B145- 
,  T 


Copyright,  1899, 
BY  CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS. 


JOHK  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE,  U.S.A. 


TO 

THOSE 

WHO    HAVE    THE   FAITH 

OF   REASON    IN   ITS    STRIVINGS 

TO   KNOW   THE    DEEPER    TRUTH    OF    THINGS 

THIS    BOOK    IS    RESPECTFULLY 

AND    AFFECTIONATELY 

DEDICATED 


83596 


"  Endure 

For  consciousness  the  motions  of  Thy  Will : 
For  apprehension  those  transcendent  truths 
Of  the  pure  Intellect  that  stand  as  Laws." 


PREFACE 


The  prefatory  explanations  which  I  wish  to  make  with  respect 
to  the  aims  and  the  conclusions  of  this  book  are  so  few  and 
obvious  that  they  may  be  very  briefly  dispatched.  The  problem 
which  it  attempts,  and  the  method  which  it  employs,  are  stated 
at  some  length  in  the  first  chapter.  Its  main  conclusions  —  the 
"  Theory  of  Reality  "  it  advocates  —  are  reiterated  and  en- 
forced in  connection  with  the  critical  discussion  of  each  topic  ; 
they  are  given  synthetic  treatment  and  summarized  in  the 
concluding  portions  of  the  book.  The  faithfulness  of  its 
appeal  to  recognized  facts  and  to  the  positive  sciences  has 
been  emphasized  by  the  frequency  with  which  the  conceptions 
and  phrases  defining  man's  "  cognitive  experience "  are 
employed. 

There  are,  however,  two  or  three  considerations  to  which 
I  should  like  to  call  attention  in  this  Preface.  The  first  of 
these  concerns  the  relation  in  which  this  book  stands  to  a 
work  published  in  1897  and  entitled  "  Philosophy  of  Knowl- 
edge." That  work  dealt  with  the  problem  of  man  as  a 
knower ;  and  this  deals  with  the  problem  of  the  reality  known. 
These  two  problems,  although  admitting  of  a  certain  amount 
of  relatively  independent  discussion,  are  really  not  unlike  two 
aspects  of  one  and  the  same  all-inclusive  object  of  human 
critical  and  reflective  thinking.  The  doctrine  of  knowledge, 
then,  which  was  -elaborated  in  the  earlier  book,  is  assumed 
and  trusted  throughout  in  the  discussions  of  this  book.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  theory  of  reality  which  was  discovered 


Vlil  PREFACE 

in  germinal  form  by  the  earlier  book  is  the  conclusion 
elaborated  into  a  system  of  metaphysics  by  the  studies  which 
this  book  contains.  While  I  then  felt  the  need,  through  lack 
of  predecessors  among  modern  English  writers  on  philosophy 
in  the  definite  line  of  epistemological  research  (as  I  understood 
it),  of  the  charitable  consideration  due  to  the  "  pioneer,"  or 
struggler  with  the  more  primitive  obstacles  in  the  path,  I  now 
ask  that  this  attempt  at  a  theory  of  reality  should  be  con- 
sidered in  the  light  of  the  positions  taken  by  its  predecessor 
and  yet  companion  volume. 

I  ask  also  —  and  surely  the  request  is  reasonable  —  that 
this  book  should  be  credited  with  making  only  such  claims  as 
its  title  and  whole  construction  indicate.  It  is  avowedly 
speculative  ;  it  puts  itself  forward  only  as  affording  a  tenable 
theory  for  the  solution  of  those  profound  problems  touching 
the  ultimate  Nature  of  Reality,  with  which  human  thought  has 
always  contended,  and  will  continue  to  contend  until  the  end 
of  human  existence.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  renew 
discussion  upon  the  relations  in  which  "  theory  "  —  especially 
of  the  kind  to  which  systematic  metaphysics  leads  —  stands 
to  knowledge,  or  to  faith,  or  to  the  life  of  conduct.  I  have 
been  chiefly  concerned  in  this  book  to  fulfil  the  conditions 
which  belong  to  the  establishment  of  a  valid  speculative  result 
upon  a  basis  of  fact  and  of  science.  If  obscurities  and  other 
faults  of  style,  that  are  separable  from  the  theoretical  handling 
of  such  themes,  are  found  abundant  here,  the  author  can  only 
say  that  he  has  tried  to  avoid  them ;  and  that  no  one  will 
welcome  more  than  he  all  improvements  by  others,  both  of 
method  and  of  result. 

There  is  only  one  other  point  to  which  I  wish  to  call 
attention.  The  field  of  general  and  systematic  metaphysics 
has  been  so  long  and  so  thoroughly  cultivated  by  the  pro- 
foundest  and  keenest  thinkers  that  for  any  writer  now  to 
claim,  either  expressly  or  implicitly,  a  considerable  share  of 
originality  would  be  unworthy  ;  even  the  attempt  at  originality 


PREFACE  ix 

would  be  likely  either  to  depreciate  the  result  or  to  defeat  it- 
self. In  my  preparatory  studies  for  this  book,  as  for  all  my 
previous  essays  in  psychology  and  philosophy,  I  have  faith- 
fully tried  to  keep  my  mind  in  genial  communion  with  the 
best  both  of  the  past  and  of  the  present  time.  The  "  Theory  of 
Reality"  here  advocated  is,  of  course,  not  essentially  new  ;  on 
the  contrary,  its  most  important  features  have  been  drawn, 
although  with  varying  details,  again  and  again.  None  the 
less  this  theory  is  peculiarly  my  own  ;  and  this  is  because  I 
have  made  it  my  own  by  going  to  the  sources  of  all  defensible 
metaphysics  in  the  cognitive  experience  of  the  race  —  both 
that  which  appertains  to  the  "  plain  man's  consciousness  "  and 
that  which  has  been  gathered  into  the  different  positive 
sciences.  It  is,  therefore,  a  not  wholly  unwarranted  hope  that 
the  readers  of  this  book  will  find  in  it  something  fresh  and 
new,  as  respects  the  way  in  which  the  critical  analysis  of  the 
categories  is  conducted,  and  also  as  respects  the  manner  of 
making  and  expounding  its  final,  speculative  synthesis. 

The  few  references  made  to  other  works  give  no  indication 
of  my  obligations  to  the  great  number  of  workmen  who  have 
preceded  me  in  the  same  attempt  at  a  "  Theory  of  Reality." 
Neither  is  the  fact  of  reference  to  any  particular  author  an 
indication  of  the  extent  of  my  obligations.  For  some  of  the 
names  mentioned  in  the  notes  are  relatively  unimportant ; 
others  are  among  the  great  personages  in  the  history  of 
philosophy.  References  in  metaphysics  have  little  or  no  value 
as  authority ;  and  no  man  need  feel  wronged  because  he  has 
held  and  published  opinions  in  this  field  identical  with  those 
of  any  other  author,  and  yet  has  not  been  quoted  in  support 
or  elucidation  of  them.  I  wish,  however,  to  say  that  the 
chapters  in  this  book  which  come  into  closest  relations  with 
the  physical  sciences  have,  in  general,  been  submitted  to 
friends  and  colleagues  who  are  experts  in  these  sciences  ;  and 
that  I  have  been  both  assisted  and  reassured  by  their  kindly 
comments  and  criticisms.  But  to  mention  names  here  would 


x  PREFACE 

create  false  impressions  regarding  both  their  part  and  tfeat  of 
the  author  in  constructing  the  views  of  these  chapters. 

How  preceding  works  of  mine  on  psychology  and  philoso- 
phy have  led  up  to  this  volume,  and  how  it  stands  in  the 
system  of  philosophical  thoughts  with  the  elaboration  of 
which  I  am  concerned,  as  an  important  part  of  my  life-work, 
I  have  ventured  to  explain  at  some  length  in  the  closing 
chapter. 

GEOKGE   TKUMBULL   LADD. 

YALE  UNIVERSITY,  April,  1899. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

ON    METAPHYSICS  ;      ITS     NATURE  J     ITS     METHOD  J     AND     THE     PRO- 
PRIETY  OF    IT 

The  Rights  of  Metaphysics  —  Necessary  Part  of  all  Philosophy  — 
Agnostic  Position  untenable  —  The  Objections  of  Science  —  and 
of  Literature  —  or  Religion  —  The  Nature  of  Metaphysics  —  Re- 
lations  to  Science  and  to  Epistemology  —  Metaphysics  as  Inter- 
pretation —  As  a  Discussion  of  the  Categories  —  The  Propriety  of 
Metaphysics 1 

CHAPTER   II 

PHENOMENON    AND    ACTUALITY 

The  Distinction  involved  —  Psychological  Origin  of  the  Distinction  — 
Impossibility  of  mere  Appearance  —  Application  to  the  Nature  of 
the  Self  —  as  belonging  to  all  Self-consciousness  —  Correlation  of 
the  two  Terms  —  The  Trans-subjective  always  involved  —  The 
Distinction  accepted 34 

CHAPTER  III 

ANALYSIS    OF    THE    CONCEPTION    OF    REALITY 

Meaning  of  the  word  "  Reality  "  —  Its  Emotional  Effects  —  Its  Wealth 
of  Content  —  Reality  as  actual  Thing  —  Not  wholly  a  Product  of 
Thought  —  Reality  as  Will  —  Negative  Definitions  of  the  Concep- 
tion—  Positive  Definitions  of  the  same  Conception 57 

CHAPTER   IV 

REALITY    AS    AN   ACTUAL    HARMONY    OF    THE    CATEGORIES 

The  Relations  of  all  the  Categories  —  They  are  inseparable  in  Reality 
—  Analysis  of  "Being  in  Space"  —  All  Categories  implicate  in 
Each  Reality  —  Yet  None  analyzable  into  Any  Other  —  Special 
Pairs  and  Groups  —  The  Unity  of  the  Categories  —  Criticism  of 
different  Systems  —  Proofs  of  this  Unity 84 


xii  TABLE  OF   CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  V 

PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES 

PAGE 

The  Conception  of  Substance  —  Testimony  of  Sensuous  Experience  — 

The  Usages  of  Science  —  Genesis  of  the  Conception  of  Substance 

-  The  Logician's  View  —  Idea  of  Activity  involved  —  Related  to 

the  Category  of  Force  —  Particular  Existence  —  The  Conception 

of  Quality  —  The  Analogy  of  the  Self Ill 

CHAPTER  VI 

CHANGE    AND   BECOMING 

The  View  of  Heraclitus  —  Genesis  of  the  Conception  of  Change  —  The 
Conception  as  realized  by  the  Self  —  Impossibility  of  discrediting 
the  Conception  —  Change  as  a  System  of  Changes  —  Necessity  for 
Principles  of  Becoming  —  Reality  not  mere  Mechanism  of  Change  140 

CHAPTER  VII 

RELATION 

Relation  as  itself  related  to  other  Categories  —  Kant's  Treatment  of  It 

—  Origin  of,  in  Cognitive  Judgment  —  The  Kinds  of  Relation  — 
This  Category  without  Limits —  Meaning  of,  as  applied  to  Self  — 
The  Absolute  not  the  Unrelated 160 

CHAPTER  VIII 

TIME 

Special  Character  of  Time  and  Space  —  The  Formal  Categories  — 
Negative  Criticism  of  these  Categories  —  Psychological  Origin  of 
Time  —  Scientific  Conception  of  Time  —  Time  both  Relative  and 
Real  —  The  Conception  of  the  World's  Time  —  The  Infinity  of 
Time  —  Kantian  View  of  Time  as  a  priori  —  Transcendental  Real- 
ity of  this  Category  —  Time  and  the  Absolute 1 78 

CHAPTER  IX 

SPACE    AND    MOTION 

Space  as  a  Principle  of  Differentiation  —  Difficulties  of  the  true  Con- 
ception —  Negative  Attitude  insufficient  —  The  Assumptions  in- 
volved—  Essential  Nature  of  the  Space-Function —  The  Category 
as  an  Active  Principle  —  Genesis  of  Space  —  Consciousness  — 
Scientific  Conception  of  Space  —  Motion  both  Relative  and  Real 

—  Witness  of  Physics,  and  of  Chemistry  —  Final  Metaphysical 
Problem  —  The  Being  of  the  World  « in  Space  " 214 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS.  xiii 

CHAPTER  X 

FORCE   AND   CAUSATION 

PAGE 

The  Dynamical  View  of  the  World  —  Force  necessary  in  the  Realiza- 
tion of  all  the  Categories  —  Genesis  of  the  Conception  —  Psycho- 
logical Objections  answered  —  Force  as  Substantial  Cause  —  The 
Conception  of  Modern  Physics  —  Substitution  of  the  Conception 
of  Energy  —  Problem  of  Actio  in  Distans  —  Energy  as  Potential 
and  Kinetic  —  Conservation  and  Correlation  of  Energy  —  The 
World  not  a  mere  Sum  in  Quantity  —  Qualitative  Character  of  the 
Atoms  —  Bearing  of  the  View  upon  the  Nature  of  Reality  .  .  .  253 

CHAPTER  XI 

MEASURE    AND    QUANTITY 

Dependence  of  Science  on  these  Categories  —  Implied  that  Nature  is 
really  measurable  —  Gene'sis  of  the  Conception  of  Quantity  —  Ap- 
plication of  the  Category  to  Things  —  Realitivity  of  all  Measure- 
ment —  The  Conceptions  of  the  Euclidean  —  and  of  the  Modern 
Geometry  —  Nature  of  Geometrical  Axioms  —  Hints  as  to  the 
Nature  of  Reality 294 

CHAPTER  XII 

NUMBER   AND    UNITY 

Nature  of  the  Category  of  Number  —  Counting  the  Essence  of  all 
Numbering  —  Genesis  and  Development  of  the  Conception  — 
Numerable  Construction  of  Objects  —  The  Metaphysical  Truth 
implied  —  Criticism  of  the  Kantian  View  —  The  Conception  of 
Unity  — The  World  as  a  Unity 318 

CHAPTER   XIII 

FORMS    AND    LAWS 

Universality  of  these  Categories  —  Reduction  to  the  Conception  of 
"  Immanent  Ideas  " —  "  Pure  Form  "  and  "  Pure  Law  "  unmean- 
ing —  These  Conceptions  transcendental  —  The  Analogy  of  the 
Self  implied  —  Anthropomorphism  of  Natural  Science  —  Meaning 
of  the  term  "  Immanent  "  —  Indisputable  Nature  of  this  Category 
—  Review  of  the  Meaning  of  Causality  —  The  Reality  of  Forms 
and  Laws  in  the  Being  of  the  World 337 


XIV  TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XIV 

TELEOLOGY 

PAGE 

Importance  of  the  Discussion  —  Difference  of  Positions  —  Psychological 
Origin  of  the  Conception  —  Application  to  the  Self  —  Objection 
as  Anthropomorphism  —  Kant's  Treatment  of  Final  Purpose  — 
The  Biological  View  —  Illustrations  —  Objections  examined  —  Re- 
lation to  Principle  of  Mechanism  —  Idea  of  an  "  Ultimate  Aim  " 
—  Unity  of  the  World's  Course  implied 363 

CHAPTER  XV 

SPHERES    OF    REALITY 

Results  of  preceding  Analysis — Significance  of  the  Conception  jf  Self- 
hood—  Can  a  Self  be  Absolute? — Answer  by  the  Theory  of 
"  Spheres  of  Reality  "  —  Things  as  imperfect  Selves  —  History  of 
the  Conception  of  Self  —  Spirit  as.  Will  and  Idea  —  Conclusions 
as  to  Reality  of  an  Absolute  Self ,  .  394 

CHAPTER  XVI 

MATTER 

Nature  of  this  Conception  —  The  Physicist's  View  examined  —  Experi- 
mental Genesis  of  the  Conception  —  Matter  as  Mass  —  Matter  as. 
Substrate  for  Energy  —  Necessity  of  Union  of  the  Two  —  Matter 
as  having  Inertia —  Metaphysical  Conception  of  Matter  —  Chemical 
Conception  of  Matter  —  The  Atomic  Theory  —  Mystical  Concep- 
tion of  Matter  .  , 419 

CHAPTER   XVII 

NATURE    AND    SPIRIT 

Need  of  the  Conception  of  "  Nature  "  —  Personification  of  Nature  — 
Two-foldness  of  this  Asolute  Whole  —  Nature  as  the  Source  of 
Life  —  Theory  of  Evolution  examined  —  Nature  as  a  Life  —  Nature 
as  Will  and  Idea 452 

CHAPTER   XVIII 

THE    ACTUALITY   OF    THE    IDEAL 

Necessity  of  admitting  Ideas  —  All  Reality  an  Actualization  of  Ideas  — 
This  true  of  Things  —  The  Self  actualizes  its  own  Ideas  —  The 
Actualization  of  Ideals  —  The  Ideal  Nature  of  the  Absolute  .  473 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS  XV 

CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  WORLD  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE 

PAGE 

Position  of  Different  Metaphysical  Systems — General  Considerations 
stated  —  The  Absolute  not  unrelated  —  but  the  Source  of  all  Rela- 
tions —  Relations  to  the  World  as  Subject  to  its  Object  —  The 
Absolute  not  mere  Unity  of  Force  —  The  Absolute  as  World- 
Ground  —  and  as  the  Principle  of  all  Becoming  —  Bearing  of  the 
Doctrine  on  Ethics  and  Religion  —  The  Absolute  as  the  Ground 
and  the  Source  of  Ideals  —  Ethical  Objections  to  Monism  answered 

—  Theory  of  Identity  denied 493 

CHAPTER  XX 

SUMMARY    AND    CONCLUSION. 

Conclusions  of  Scientific  Psychology  —  from  the  Physiological  Point  of 
View  —  and  as  Descriptive  History  of  Mind  —  Metaphysical  Treat- 
ment of  the  Same  Subject  —  Problems  raised  as  to  the  Being  of 
the  World  —  Possibility  and  Postulates  of  Knowledge  Examined 

—  All  Conclusions  summarized  in  a  "  Theory  of  Reality  "...  529 


INDEX .553 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 


CHAPTER   I 

ON  METAPHYSICS:  ITS  NATURE;  ITS  METHOD;  AND  THE 
PROPRIETY  OF  IT 

THE  right  to  attempt  a  systematic  and  detailed  treatment 
of  metaphysical  problems  is,  at  present,  undoubtedly  among 
the  most  difficult  both  to  maintain  and  to  exercise.  And  yet 
the  reasons  given  to  justify  this  difficulty  are  not,  as  is  often 
assumed,  convincing;  nor  are  its  true  causes  altogether 
obvious.  The  use,  to  their  fullest  extent,  of  his  powers  of 
reflection  is  conceded  to  be  one  of  the  most  inalienable  rights 
and  highest  privileges  of  rational  man ;  there  is,  indeed, 
scarcely  any  other  obligation  which  the  thoughtful  feel  to  be 
so  inherently  sacred  and  even  imperative.  And  surely  the 
problems  offered  by  the  real  existences  and  actual  events 
known  to  his  common,  work-a-day  experiences,  as  well  as  to 
the  particular  sciences,  have  not  the  lowest  claims  to  make 
upon  man's  powers  of  reflection.  But  these  are  the  distinc- 
tively metaphysical  problems. 

If  we  inquire  into  the  particular  objections  with  which  the 
very  proposal  to  establish  a  metaphysical  system  is  now  cus- 
tomarily met,  they  appear  to  be  partly  inherent  in  the  subject, 
and  partly  the  effect  of  our  modern  environment.  The 
weakness  and  pettiness,  the  errors  and  limitations  of  the 
human  intellect,  have  always,  since  philosophy  began,  been 
remarked  upon ;  what  wonder  that  they  are  emphasized  anew, 


A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

if  not  exaggerated,  in  the  mind  of  an  age  that  so  eagerly  seeks 
the  practical  advantages  and  assured  results  of  the  positive 
sciences  ?  And  do  we  not  all  feel,  in  a  manner  quite  blase', 
the  weight  of  those  burdens  which  belong  to  the  very  consti- 
tution of  humanity  ?  Who  of  us  has  not  at  some  time  ex- 
claimed over  the  arrogance  of  assuming  that  it  is  possible  to 
treat  the  insoluble  riddles  of  existence  to  a  critical  analysis 
and  a  complete  and  authoritative  synthesis  ?  Besides,  have 
not  certain  most  distinguished  students  of  philosophy  pro- 
nounced against  the  possibility  of  metaphysics  as  a  system  of  • 
ontology  ?  The  impossibility  of  extending  human  cognition 
so  as  to  have  a  valid  conception  of  Reality  —  not  to  claim  more 
—  was  the  demonstrated  conclusion  of  the  incomparable 
author  of  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason.  Undoubtedly  this 
agnostic  negation  of  knowledge  has  been  much  more  widely 
received  by  his  followers  than  the  ethical  and  religious  faith 
which  Kant  hoped  to  establish  by  his  use  of  the  critical 
method.  Nor  can  we  forget  that  his  immediate  predecessor 
in  the  same  method,  the  keenly  analytic  Hume,  held  so  poor 
an  opinion  of  human  nature,  when  employed  in  ontological 
speculation,  as  to  commend  to  the  flames  all  treatises  on 
"  school  metaphysics." 

One  may  accept  or  reject  the  current  depreciation  of  the 
human  intellect  —  either  wholly  or  partially,  and  more  or 
less  intelligently  —  without  once  noticing  several  of  the  most 
important  points  at  issue.  As  to  the  more  complete  justifica- 
tion of  any  particular  view  of  the  nature  and  limits  of  man's 
cognitive  powers,  we  have  little  or  nothing  to  say  at  present. 
The  question  of  justification  is,  after  all,  an  epistemological 
question ;  it  must  be  fought  to  an  issue,  on  grounds  of  a 
theory  of  knowledge.  But,  if  the  epistemological  problems 
be  set  aside  for  the  time  being,  there  are  two  or  three  rather 
remarkable  eccentricities  of  opposition  which  the  attempt  at 
a  systematic  solution  of  the  metaphysical  problems  is  com- 
pelled to  encounter.  These  eccentricities  may  be  brought  to 


METAPHYSICS:    MATURE,   METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY       3 

the  surface  by  asking  —  somewhat  abruptly  —  the  following 
question :  Granted  that  the  mind  of  man  is  finite,  weak,  liable 
to  error,  limited  in  capacity ;  but  what  of  it,  in  any  especial 
way,  so  far  as  the  student  of  systematic  metaphysics  is 
concerned  ?  Why  select  the  few  thinkers  whose  unhappy 
destiny  impels  them  to  make  the  effort  to  bring  into  more 
scientific  form  the  results  of  profound  reflection  over  the 
problems  of  existence,  and  load  upon  them  the  entire  odium 
of  that  restriction  of  rationality  which  is  the  universal  lot  of 
humanity  ?  In  many  instances  they  are  of  all  men  most  keenly 
sensitive  to  the  inherent  and  stubborn  resistance  which  meta- 
physical studies  offer  to  him  who  pursues  them  ardently. 
How  limited  and  relatively  helpless  the  reflecting  mind  is  in 
the  presence  of  some  of  the  mysteries  of  Reality,  no  one  else 
knows  so  indubitably  as  he  who  has  done  his  best  to  explore 
these  mysteries.  Poets  and  novelists  and  essayists  may  speak 
freely  on  these  problems  ;  why  not  avowed  metaphysicians  "  of 
the  school "  also  ?  Must  they  alone  be  weighted  down  into 
silence  and  darkness  by  that  "  fear  of  erring  "  which,  as  Hegel 
so  sagaciously  says,  may  be  the  essence  of  "  error  itself  "  ? 

The  insincerity  of  that  scorn  of  systematic  metaphysics 
which  alleges  in  its  own  justification  the  limitations  of  human 
reason  is  made  apparent  by  two  lines  of  thinking.  Both  of 
these  lead  in  pursuit  of  an  explanation  for  facts  of  observation. 
The  first  of  them  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  rights  of 
philosophizing  cannot  be  admitted  and  the  rights  of  that  branch 
of  philosophy  which  is  properly  called  metaphysics  be  denied. 
In  order  to  show  this  it  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  here  what 
has  been  said  elsewhere  in  detail  as  to  the  nature  of  phil- 
osophy and  of  its  divisions.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  pass  in 
review  the  history  of  speculative  thought,  although  this  entire 
history  illustrates  and  enforces  our  contention.  Whatever 
conception  one  holds  of  the  nature  of  philosophy,  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  exclude  from  the  sphere  of  philosophy  the  critical  and 
systematic  treatment  of  those  concrete  realities  which  are 


4  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

somehow  brought  to  an  ideal  Unity  by  all  of  man's  development 
in  knowledge.  Let  us  admit  that  to  philosophize  is  but  to 
think  reflectively  —  as  profoundly  and  thoroughly  as  one  can. 
In  its  more  sceptical  and  critical  forms,  such  thinking  subjects 
to  analysis  all  the  assumptions  and  beliefs,  as  well  as  the 
alleged  positive  cognitions  of  ordinary  experience  and  of  the 
particular  sciences.  As  synthetic  and  constructive,  it  aims  at 
the  harmony  of  all  our  particular  experiences  in  some  view  of 
the  world  and  of  human  life  that  shall  be  freed  from  internal 
contradictions,  and  that  shall  interpret  and  illumine  them  all. 
But  that  we  are,  and  that  things  are  —  this  is  the  fundamental 
fact,  or  net-work  of  facts,  which,  with  its  beliefs  and  assump- 
tions, challenges  our  reflective  powers.  And  what  we  are, 
and  what  things  are,  what  is  the  being  which  we  and  they 
share  in  common,  —  to  tell  this  in  a  way  that  is  truthful,  rich 
in  content,  aesthetically  inspiring,  and  morally  helpful,  is  the 
goal  of  philosophical  synthesis.  But  this  is  also  the  aim  of 
metaphysical  system. 

And,  in  fact,  no  one  has  ever  philosophized  to  any  extent, 
whether  in  the  more  technical  and  scholastic  fashion  or  as  the 
most  timid  and  self-distrustful  of  laymen,  without  involving  in 
his  own  reflections  some  attempt  at  a  theory  of  reality. 
Pure  positivism  is  impossible  for  any  mind  that  reflects. 
Scepticism  and  criticism  that  both  begin  and  end  in  merely 
being  sceptical  and  critical  are  intolerable  for  the  human  in- 
tellect. By  this  it  is  not  meant  simply  that  they  are  aesthet- 
tically  distasteful  or  ethically  unsatisfying;  although  they  are, 
in  fact,  both.  But  the  rather  is  it  obvious  that  positivism  puts 
a  strain  of  self-reservation  and  distrust  upon  human  reason 
which  cannot  be  borne  for  any  length  of  time.  Neither  is  it 
possible  to  cultivate  epistemology  without  metaphysics,  any 
more  than  it  is  to  develop  metaphysics  without  epistemologi- 
cal  views  or  assumptions.  We  know,  indeed,  that  Kant 
thought  he  had  proved  metaphysics,  as  ontology,  forever 
impossible.  Thus,  in  his  opinion,  after  the  entire  task  of 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND  PROPRIETY     5 

Critique  was  performed,  in  the  three  branches  of  speculative 
reason,  philosophy  of  conduct,  and  principles  controlling 
judgments  of  taste,  nothing  remained  to  represent  the  ancient 
discipline  of  ontological  philosophy  but  a  collection  of  those 
concepts  which  had  survived  the  critical  process.  For  a  vital 
theory  of  reality  there  had  been  substituted  a  logical  co- 
ordination of  mere  forms  of  thinking.  All  the  life,  the 
power,  the  interest,  of  reflective  effort  had  gone  into  criticism. 
For  metaphysics  there  remained  only  a  collection  of  fossils. 
The  bones,  carefully  cleansed  from  all  the  decay  of  empir- 
icism, well  polished  with  long  continued  friction  from  dialec- 
tics, and  firmly  and  skilfully  articulated,  are  put  on  exhibition 
by  the  metaphysical  systematizer.  But  where  is  the  man, 
with  his  life-blood,  and  nervous  energy,  and  entire  dynamic 
outfit  —  ready  for  commerce  with  the  wilful  and  baffling 
concrete  realities  of  daily  experience  ? 

Kant  did  not  live  to  complete  his  scheme  for  a  systematic 
display  of  the  results  reached  by  the  critical  method,  as  he 
himself  conceived  of  metaphysics,  its  nature,  and  its  possibility. 
He  evidently  regarded  this  work  as  light  and  relatively  unim- 
portant after  the  task  of  criticism  had  been  thoroughly  done. 
But  if  he  had  accomplished  what  he,  to  the  last,  kept  it  in 
mind  to  do  for  metaphysical  system,  his  real  opinions  as  to 
the  nature  of  the  transcendental  world  would  not  have 
been  a  whit  clearer  or  more  defensible.  For  this  "  school 
metaphysics" — this  classified  arrangement  of  concepts  that 
had  been  shown  to  furnish  the  a  priori  forms  for  all  objective 
cognition  —  would  not  have  coincided  with  his  own  heartfelt 
theory  of  reality.  Who  that  has  studied  the  critical  philos- 
sophy  thoroughly  does  not  know  that  its  whole  structure  is 
pervaded  with  ontological  cognitions,  beliefs,  and  opinions  ? 
The  private  emotional  and  practical  metaphysics  of  Kant — 
so  to  speak  —  is  the  very  warp  of  the  texture  into  which  he 
weaves  with  such  astonishing  intricacy  the  woof  of  his  critical 
tenets.  This  warp  is  not  a  critical  doctrine  of  the  categories^ 


6  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

but  a  collection  of  sesthetical  and  ethical  sentiments,  of  threads 
that  mark  the  projections  of  a  noble  and  strenuous  personality 
into  the  being  of  things,  and  of  unanalyzed  assumptions  or 
cognitions.  Kant's  unrecognized  or  half-concealed  tenets  as 
to  the  real  Being  of  the  World  are  at  once  more  acceptable  to 
reason  and  better  to  live  and  to  die  by  than  his  completed 
catalogue  of  the  categories  would  have  been.  For  the  "  faith  " 
which  Kant  made  "  room  for "  has  no  less  of  defensible 
knowledge  in  it  than  the  "  knowledge  "  he  aimed  to  remove 
had  of  rational  faith. 

And  what  is. true  of  the  results  of  reflection  in  the  case  of 
the  founder  of  modern  critical  philosophy  is  true  of  the 
results  of  all  human  reflection.  Hegel  may  perhaps  justly  be 
charged  with  a  certain  "  arrogance  of  reason,"  which,  it  is 
assumed,  has  of  late  properly  fallen  into  disrepute.  But  if 
the  charge  be  just,  it  does  not  lie  against  this  thinker  simply 
because  he  believed  in  the  possibility  of  metaphysics  as  a  valid 
theory  of  reality,  or  because  he  made  the  attempt  to  realize 
this  possibility  in  a  systematic  way.  The  weaknesses  and  limi- 
tations of  human  reason  in  general  no  more  discredit  the 
Logik  and  the  ReligionspTiilosophie  of  Hegel  than  they  discredit 
the  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft  of  Kant,  or  the  reflections  of 
the  most  prominent  advocate  of  agnosticism  at  the  present 
time.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  philosophy,  for  example,  is  on£o- 
logical  from  centre  to  circumference  and  from  beginning  to 
end.  It  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  stupendous  and  self-confi- 
dent systems  of  metaphysics  which  have  ever  been  evolved. 

In  a  word,  we  cannot  consistently  maintain  and  defend  the 
right  of  man  to  think  reflectively  without  including  in  this  also 
the  right  to  attempt  a  systematic  metaphysics,  —  that  is,  some 
preferred  rational  and  unifying  view  of  the  world  of  real 
beings  and  actual  events.  The  mere  critic  in  philosophy,  like 
the  mere  critic  in  art  or  in  literature,  may  be  quite  as 
arrogant  in  self-confidence,  and  as  inconsistent  in  his  distrust 
of  other  human  faculty  than  his  own,  as  the  most  pronounced 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,   METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY     7 

dogmatist.  Indeed,  criticism  in  philosophy  without  a  meta- 
physical standpoint  is  impossible.  All  philosophical  scepticism 
and  agnosticism  is  necessarily  ontological.  The  moment  the 
phenomenalist,  the  positivist,  becomes  genuinely  philosophical, 
he  indulges  himself  in  metaphysics.  It  would  seem,  then,  that 
the  place  for  the  consistent  scorner  of  all  attempts  at  a  theory 
of  reality  lies  wholly  outside  the  boundaries  of  philosophy. 

But  now  the  second  class  of  those  eccentricities  of  behavior 
which  characterize  certain  deniers  of  the  rights  of  metaphysics 
becomes  apparent.  For  there  are  many  facts  of  observation 
which  lead  to  the  following  somewhat  startling  conclusion: 
voluntarily  to  abandon  philosophy  and  openly  to  renounce  all 
the  rights  of  reflective  thinking  does  not  relieve  one  from  a 
certain  inescapable  obligation  to  be  metaphysical.  And  here 
it  seems  most  strange  that  the  real  intent  and  the  valid  con- 
clusion—  if  we  accept  it  at  all  —  of  the  Kantian  criticism 
has  been  so  lost  out  of  the  regard  of  the  modern  objector  to 
systematic  metaphysics.  This  intent  was  not  to  enhance  the 
objections  to  a  rational  faith  in  God  and  in  the  freedom  and 
immortality  of  the  human  soul.  It  was,  the  rather,  to  render 
these  objections  permanently  hors  du  combat  in  the  battle 
that  is  forever  being  waged  between  certain  kinds  of  Idealism, 
or  Supernaturalism,  and  a  common-sense  or  scientific  Natural- 
ism. All  the  way  through  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason 
Kant's  sceptical  and  agnostic  positions  bear  most  heavily 
against  the  ontological  metaphysics  of  natural  science  and 
of  the  man  whose  horizon  is  confined  to  the  things  of  sense. 
It  is  not  the  believer  in  God,  freedom,  and  immortality, 
but  the  hard-headed  denier  of  these  realities  on  grounds  of 
confidence  in  his  theoretical  construction  of  a  system  of 
mere  things,  whose  vitals  are  pierced  with  the  sword  of  the 
Kantian  criticism. 

It  is  just  here  that  an  unprejudiced  survey  of  the  facts 
becomes  especially  instructive.  For  the  "  plain  man's  "  con- 
sciousness is  always  and  inevitably  metaphysical ;  it  is 


A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

generally  not  sceptical  and  agnostic.  Besides  the  merit  of 
suggesting  a  point  in  the  psychological  theory  of  vision, 
which  has  already  been  transcended,  this  was  the  only  con- 
tribution made  to  human  thinking  by  the  Berkeley  an  idealism ; 
it  insisted  upon  the  truth  that,  for  the  ordinary  consciousness, 
the  concrete  reality  is  just  this  sensuously  envisaged  object, 
and  no  "  thing-in-itself "  that  must  be  reached  by  some  pro- 
cess of  inference,  or  by  intermediation  of  some  idea.  The 
later  Scottish  realism  did  not  improve  upon,  but  rather 
travestied,  the  view  of  Berkeley  when  it  began  to  identify  this 
known  reality  of  the  object  with  the  excited  sensorium.  Nor 
did  Kant  better  matters  on  this  point  when  he  covered  up  the 
whole  inquiry  by  taking  "  data "  of  sense  for  granted,  and 
obscurely  referring  to  some  dumb  and  unmeaning  "  thiug-in- 
itself  "  as  the  giver  of  these  data.  For,  twist  the  facts  as 
psychology  without  metaphysics  may,  it  cannot  get  rid  of  the 
truth  :  there  is  a  ivhole  system  of  ontological  doctrine  concealed 
in  every  man's  work-a-day  experience  with  things.  Experi- 
ence itself  is  transcendent  of  the  subject  of  experience, — 
truly  ontological.  To  tell  how  such  experience  is  possible, 
this  was  the  problem  of  the  Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 
But  because  its  answer  laid  all  the  emphasis  on  the  analysis 
of  the  subject,  the  knower,  and  did  not  share  the  undy- 
ing confidence  of  men  that  the  object,  that  which  is  known, 
belongs  in  all  its  complicated  structure  to  the  world  of  reality, 
this  Critique  failed  to  satisfy  the  demands  of  consciousness. 

That  our  experience  with  ourselves  and  with  things  is 
complexly  ontological,  and  cannot  even  be  described,  much 
less  explained,  in  terms  of  subjective  idealism,  we  have  shown 
elsewhere l  both  from  the  psychological  and  the  epistemologi- 
cal  points  of  view.  The  more  detailed  description  and  specu- 
lative treatment  of  experience  as  thus  ontological  constitutes 
the  very  warp  and  woof  of  any  system  of  metaphysics.  What, 
however,  it  is  now  desirable  to  insist  upon  is  this :  in  the 

1  In  "  The  Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  passim. 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY      9 

very  having  of  cognitive  experience,  the  knower  is  consciously 
metaphysical.  The  knower  envisages,  or  infers,  or  believea 
in,  his  little  sphere  of  realities.  It  is  for  him  somewhat  of  a 
genuine  cosmos,  an  orderly  whole.  The  "  World "  man 
knows  is  made  up  of  real  things  and  real  minds  that  stand  in 
actual  relations,  that  change  these  relations,  that  come  to  be,, 
and  continue  in  being,  in  space  and  time ;  and  these  present 
realities  constantly  influence  each  other,  and  they  pass 
away  to  give  place  to  other  realities.  To  reflect  upon  all 
this,  or  upon  any  part  of  it,  is  to  indulge  in  ontological  specu- 
lation. For  the  trans- subjective  does  not  lie  in  the  invisible 
and  the  unknown,  where  Kant  placed  it ;  nor  is  experience 
with  concrete  realities  to  be  resolved  into  a  series  of  ap- 
pearances, as  Mr.  Bradley  would  seem  to  have  us  believe. 
To  understand,  as  fully  as  man's  powers  may,  the  things  of 
human  work-a-day  experience,  the  realities  cognized  by  the 
plain  man's  consciousness.  —  this  is  the  endeavor  of  system- 
atic metaphysics.  What  strange  inconsistency,  then,  is  in- 
volved in  the  enforced  acceptance  of  a  half-developed  onto- 
logical consciousness  when  it  denies  the  right  to  attempt  the 
free  expansion  and  more  harmonious  development  of  the 
same  ontological  consciousness ! 

Yet  more  eccentric  do  ceutain  objections  to  systematic  meta- 
physics appear  to  one  who  observes  the  facts  of  modern 
science.  Speculation  about  the  real  nature  of  things,  and  the 
insensible  causes  of  events,  is  nowhere  so  abundant  or  so 
daring  as  within  the  domain  of  modern  science.  But  the 
proper  name  for  all  such  theorizing  is  "  metaphysics."  In 
the  circles  where  such  speculation  is  most  rife,  it  is  also  most 
honored,  —  but  only  if  it  be  not  called  by  its  legitimate  name. 
Consider,  for  example,  how  many  "theories"  of  evolution 
have  arisen  and  are  still  advocated  among  the  most  advanced 
of  the  biologists  ;  or  again,  how  many  "  theories  "  have  been 
put  forward  and  are  still  defended  by  chemists  and  physicists 
as  to  the  ultimate  constitution  of  matter,  and  as  to  the  forces 


10  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

and  laws  which  have  secured  its  differentiation  into  the 
things  of  ordinary  experience.  These  theories  are  by  no 
means  wary,  not  to  say  modest,  in  their  demands  for  "  Space," 
"  Time,"  and  "  Force,"  and  even  for  a  great  variety  of  most 
curiously  and  intricately  constructed  entities.  No  equivocal 
theory  of  cognition  disturbs  the  average  speculator  upon 
these  subjects,  in  the  boldest  flights  of  his  imagination. 
Few  rebukes  for  excessive  trust  in  the  ontological  insights  or 
inferences  of  faulty  human  reason  are  awakened  among  the 
learned  brotherhood  in  the  scientific  society  before  which  his 
speculations  are  discussed. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  objections  felt  to  systematic 
metaphysics  must  find  some  other  justification  than  the  imma- 
nent and  irremovable  weakness  of  man's  faculties  of  reflection. 
For  this  reason,  consistently  carried  through,  would  not  only 
limit  unduly  philosophical  speculation,  but  would  discredit  all 
reflection  upon  the  facts  of  every-day  experience  and  check 
all  scientific  hypothesis  and  theorizing.  And,  indeed,  no 
fixed  distinction  can  be  made  between  ordinary  knowledge 
and  scientific  knowledge,  or  between  scientific  knowledge  and 
philosophical  knowledge.  Every  attempt  at  every  kind  of 
knowledge  assumes  to  start  on  terms  of  good  faith  with  human 
reason.  All  alleged  knowledge  implies  ontological  judgment 
and  ontological  inference.  All  actual  knowledge  is  pene- 
trated with  fragments  of  metaphysics,  is  based  upon  and  shot 
through  and  through  with  some  theory  of  reality.  Systematic 
metaphysics  is  indeed  a  difficult,  and,  in  its  perfection,  an 
impossible  attainment.  The  reasons  for  this  difficulty  un- 
doubtedly lie,  in  part,  in  the  inherent  weakness  and  inescap- 
able limitations  of  the  human  mind.  But  these  reasons  do 
not  afford  sufficient  causes  why  any  attempt  at  thorough  and 
comprehensive  ontological  speculation  should  be  distrusted, 
much  less  derided. 

If  now  attention  be  turned  to  certain  causes  in  the  present 
environment  of  the  intending  metaphysician,  the  explanation 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND  PROPRIETY     11 

of  the  reception  awarded  him  becomes  more  obvious.  Thor- 
ough and  painstaking  discussion  of  the  problems  of  existence 
has  never  been  popular.  It  is  probably  not  to  be  expected, 
even  if  it  were  to  be  desired,  that  it  ever  will  be  popular.  It 
is  not  sinister  or  ungenerous  to  observe,  with  Eucken, 1  that  the 
common  understanding  feels  toward  every  system  of  phi- 
losophy that  concealed  hatred  which  it  feels  toward  all  the 
higher  products  of  reason.  The  contempt  for  metaphysics  in 
the  popular  mind  is  akin  to  the  contempt  for  fine  art  and 
refined  conduct.  This  "common  understanding"  finds  no 
problems  and  no  mysteries  in  most  of  the  concrete  beings  and 
actual  events  of  life.  But  some  of  these  beings,  and  not  a 
few  of  these  events,  force  themselves  upon  the  attention  of 
the  untutored  man  as  pregnant  with  a  meaning  he  cannot  com- 
prehend, or  as  bearing  a  message  from  the  invisible  to  which 
he  cannot  find  the  key.  If  this  common  understanding  is 
superstitious  it  bows  itself  before  the  fellow-man  who  professes 
to  have  solved  such  profound  problems,  to  have  unlocked  the 
door  that  leads  inward  to  such  mysterious  secrets.  The  well- 
trained  and  reverential  mind  receives  with  a  cautious  gratitude 
every  well-meant  attempt  to  throw  any  light  of  truth  upon 
man's  pathway.  In  this  day  and  in  our  Occidental  civiliza- 
tion, however,  the  common  understanding  is  not  consciously 
superstitious  ;  nor  are  the  minds  of  the  multitude  yet  trained 
into  a  reverential  attitude  toward  those  problems  of  existence 
which  modern  science  has  rendered  all  the  more  mysterious 
and  profound.  Is  it  not  due  to  a  lack  of  refinement  and  of  a 
reverent  spirit,  at  least  in  part,  that  men  generally  have  no 
greater  regard  for  the  systematic  study  of  such  problems  ? 

We  have  already  remarked  upon  certain  eccentricities  of 
opposition  to  every  attempt  at  a  systematic  metaphysics  which 
are  met  within  the  domain  of  the  natural  and  physical  sciences. 
Yet  here  it  often  happens  that  special  and  extravagant  meta- 
physical theories  are  most  abundant,  and  most  highly  prized. 

1  See  "  Geschichte  und  Kritik  der  Grundbegriffe  der  Gegenwart,"  p.  38. 


12  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

The  causes  for  this  unfavorable  attitude  of  the  modern  sci- 
entific mind  toward  "  school  metaphysics  "  —  to  borrow  the 
scornful  term  of  Hume  —  are  chiefly  historical.  Impartially 
estimated  they  may  lead  one  to  distribute  the  blame  about 
equally  between  the  "  scientists "  and  the  metaphysicians. 
On  the  one  side  are  a  very  natural  overestimate  of  the  value 
of  mere  collections  of  facts,  a  certain  confusion  as  to  the  extent 
to  which  the  descriptive  history  of  things  affords  a  complete 
satisfaction  to  our  intellectual  interests,  an  undervaluation  of 
the  part  which  assthetical  and  quasi-ethical  considerations  are 
entitled  to  play  in  all  the  growth  of  science,  and,  too  often,  a 
pitiful  lack  of  training  to  the  faculties  which  impart  true 
insight,  and  which  must  be  especially  exercised  in  carrying 
the  race  forward  to  the  realization  of  its  highest  ideals.  On 
the  other  side  are  faults  even  more  conspicuous  and  irritating, 
because  more  opposed  to  the  Zeitgeist,  although  perhaps  not 
less  natural  and  pardonable.  How  much  disregard  of  the 
established  truths  of  science,  and  how  much  shuffling  and 
playing  fast  and  loose  with  facts,  belongs  to  the  past  history 
of  u  school  metaphysics  "  !  What  lack  of  scientific  method  — 
that  most  fundamental  point  of  agreement  between  science 
and  philosophy  —  has  been  shown  by  many  of  the  most  elab- 
orate system-makers !  But  who  that  has  read  the  technical 
"  history  of  philosophy  "  needs  to  be  reminded  of  all  this  ? 
There  is,  indeed,  little  reason  to  wonder,  then,  that  modern 
physics,  chemistry  and  biology,  and  systematic  metaphysics, 
have  got  into"  an  attitude  of  mutual  distrust  and  depreciation. 
But  the  causes  of  this  attitude  are  not  irremovable.  And  there 
are  some  plain  and  grateful  signs  of  an  approaching  reconcili- 
ation and  readjustment  of  these  so  disturbed  relations. 

The  student  of  systematic  metaphysics  need  not  especially 
take  to  heart  the  attitude  toward  his  pursuit  assumed  by  the 
so-called  "  literary  world."  In  these  days  all  the  froth  and 
scum  of  human  life  is  rising  to  the  surface  in  the  stream  of 
what  is  called  literature.  Any  serious  reflection  upon  tho 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,   METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY     13 

problems  of  existence,  of  life  and  of  mind,  is  rather  to  be 
expected  from  the  most  uncultured  of  the  men  of  sober  spirit 
than  from  the  producers  and  the  consumers  of  these  myriads  of 
books.  Of  all  men,  perhaps,  the  genuine  devotee  to  literature 
most  needs  the  help  of  a  mind  that  has  reflected  profoundly 
upon  fundamental  problems.  On  the  other  hand,  the  student 
of  metaphysics  neglects  his  own  choicest  material  if  he  does 
not  recognize  the  truth  that  in  history  and  in  literature  the 
Reality  whose  exposition  he  undertakes  makes  some  of  its 
supreme  revelations  to  attentive  and  sympathetic  souls.  For 
the  present,  however,  he  who  attempts  such  a  systematic 
exposition  or  theory  of  this  reality  must  probably  be  content 
with  the  neglect  or  the  scorn  of  the  litterateurs.  And  this  he 
can  well  enough  afford  to  do. 

Some  of  the  most  persistent  difficulties  that  belong  to  the 
present  environment  of  the  student  of  systematic  metaphysics 
are  found  on  quasi-ethical  or  religious  grounds.  The  long- 
time subordination  of  the  metaphysics  of  ethics  and  of  reli- 
gion to  established  systems  of  theology  has  now  been  virtually 
overcome.  That  lofty  patronage  of  the  practical  life  of 
morals  and  of  religion  which  consists  in  claiming  all  assured 
knowledge  for  science  and  for  philosophy,  and  in  leaving  to 
the  practical  life  only  the  shifting  drift  of  sentiment,  is  surely 
destined,  even  in  its  more  modern  and  revised  form,  to  yield 
unsatisfactory  results.  Nor  can  any  of  the  so-called  "  recon- 
ciliations "  of  science  and  religion  which  leave  untouched  the 
ontological  foundations  of  both  hope  to  remain  permanent. 
Notwithstanding,  the  interests  of  philosophy,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  the  theory  and  practice  of  morals  and  of  the  religious 
life  on  the  other,  can  never  be  separated.  Religion  is,  in  its 
very  nature  and  essence,  metaphysical.  Its  fundamental 
assumptions  arise  out  of  the  naive  and  undisciplined  ontologi- 
cal consciousness.  Its  faiths  are,  partially  at  least,  to  be 
explained  as  the  feeling-full  and  practical  solution  of  some 
of  the  profoundest  problems  of  life  and  of  mind.  To  reflect 


14  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

upon  these  assumptions  and  these  faiths,  and  to  attempt  to 
understand  them  in  relation  to  all  the  other  parts  of  our 
complex  human  experience,  is  as  inevitable  a  consequence  of 
the  possession  of  rationality  as  is  any  other  form  of  reflective 
thinking. 

We  are  far  enough  from  holding  that  the  study  of  system- 
atic metaphysics  will  make  men  good  or  truly  religious.  Nor 
do  we  cherish  the  expectation  that,  in  the  millennium,  all 
righteous  and  pious  souls  will  properly  appreciate  a  Fach- 
pliilosopJde.  But  to  think  soberly  and  thoroughly  deepens 
and  enriches  the  life  of  conduct  and  the  development  of  char- 
acter. It  is  indeed  a  species  of  conduct  in  which  every  mind 
is  obligated  to  take  some  share.  It  is  also  a  most  important 
factor  and  disciplinary  agent  in  the  development  of  character. 
And  in  estimating  the  influences  which  direct  the  evolution 
of  the  mental  and  moral  life  of  the  race,  and  which  color  the 
deeper-lying  parts  of  the  stream  of  human  consciousness,  it 
is  likely  that  the  present  age  undervalues  the  reigning 
systems  of  metaphysics.  Ontological  speculations  are  not 
usually,  at  the  first,  impressive  phenomena.  Many  of  them, 
indeed,  disappear  beneath  the  ongoing  currents  of  human 
life,  —  the  commercial,  the  political,  the  ecclesiastical,  the  so- 
called  practical  interests,  —  without  leaving  so  much  as  a 
single  trace  behind.  But  after  all,  they  are  not  therefore 
necessarily  inoperative  or  wholly  lost.  And  sometimes,  when 
they  have  fortunately  found  certain  receptive  minds,  and  have 
succeeded  in  coloring  all  the  thoughts  of  these  minds,  they 
filter  silently  through  a  few  first  disciples  into  the  popular 
currents  of  opinion.  Thus  Plato  and  Aristotle  swayed 
mightily  the  lives  of  many  thousands,  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
who  had  never  heard  their  names ;  and  they  have  not  relin- 
quished their  grasp  upon  the  views  and  conduct  of  men  even 
to  the  present  day.  Thus,  too,  myriads  of  the  common  people 
are  at  this  moment  profoundly  influenced  by  the  philosopher 
of  Konigsberg,  who  have  rarely  or  never  heard  the  name  of 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND  PROPRIETY     15 

Kant.  And  what  is  so  largely  true  of  these  great  reflective 
thinkers  is  true  in  a  lesser  degree  of  all  attempts  to  under- 
stand the  prof ounder  problems  of  life  and  of  mind.  For  such  is 
the  relation  between  these  attempts  and  the  theory  and  prac- 
tice of  morals  and  religion  that  the  two  cannot  be  divorced. 

It  is  not  our  present  purpose  to  draw  practical  lessons  from 
what  has  just  been  declared  true.  Of  all  theoretical  pursuits 
theology  is  most  dependent  upon  metaphysics.  Of  all  kinds 
of  faiths  the  religious  are  'most  assuredly,  either  wholly 
illusory  or  fundamentally  ontological.  Of  all  professions  the 
ministry  can  least  afford  to  decry  a  just  use  of  reason  in  the 
pursuit  of  speculative  philosophy.  And  in  the  last  analysis, 
ethics  feels  most  keenly  the  need  of  a  ground  in  some  view  of 
the  universe  which  shall  make  the  sanctions  and  the  issues  of 
conduct  lie  embedded  in  the  heart  of  reality.  We  conclude, 
then,  that  the  causes  of  the  present  opposition  to  systematic 
metaphysics  which  originate  in  circles  whose  chief  interests 
are  in  matters  of  morality  and  religion  do  not  constitute  a 
justification.  And  this  is  true  whether  the  opposition  bears 
the  marks  of  an  odium  theologicum  or  of  a  no  less  bitter  and 
unreasoning  odium  antitheologicum. 

We  may  now  summarize  this  somewhat  lengthy  survey  of 
notable  facts  in  the  following  expression  of  opinion.  It  is 
not  particularly  difficult  to  discover  some  of  the  chief  causes 
in  which  originate  the  peculiar  obstacles  that  must  be  met  by 
any  attempt  in  the  present  day  at  a  systematic  treatment  of 
metaphysical  problems.  But  these  causes  do  not  appear  to 
constitute  valid  reasons  against  making  the  attempt.  The 
right  to  have  some  ontological  view  that  shall,  at  least,  measur- 
ably and  in  one's  own  opinion,  unify  and  harmonize  one's  expe- 
riences with  the  world  of  things  and  of  minds  is  an  essential 
part  of  the  rir/ht  to  subject  experience  to  the  process  of  reflective 
thinking.  Nor  does  there  seem  any  good  reason  why  this  right 
should  be  allowed  to  the  particular  sciences,  in  their  own 
peculiar  domains,  without  claiming  it  also  for  the  domain  of 


16  A  THEOKY  OF  REALITY 

all  those  realities  with  the  particular  kinds  of  which  these 
sciences  customarily  deal.  And  when  we  turn  from  objections 
which  seem  inherent  in  reason  itself  to  objections  which  dif- 
ferent sorts  of  people  put  forth  to  embarrass  the  would-be 
metaphysician,  we  find  even  less  of  force  and  validity  in  them. 
Indeed  it  is  true  that  the  very  people  who  need  metaphysics 
most,  often  have  least  care  and  scantiest  respect  for  it. 
Nevertheless,  it  also  remains  forever  true  that  scepticism  and 
criticism  and  history  and  encyclopaedia  of  philosophy  do  not 
fully  satisfy  those  cravings  out  of  which  philosophy  grows; 
nor  do  they  fulfil  all  those  functions  in  the  exercise  of  which 
philosophy  consists.  Ontological  speculation  is  an  essential 
function  of  the  human  reason. 

It  appears,  then,  that  systematic  metaphysics  may  be  — 
nay,  must  be — indulged  in  for  the  satisfaction  of  reason 
and  for  the  support  furnished  by  a  ground  of  reflection  to  the 
life  of  conduct,  of  art,  and  of  religion.  But  it  is,  as  we  shall 
see  later,  the  spirit  and  the  method  of  it  which  need  most 
careful  scrutiny.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  against  a 
wrong  spirit,  either  obvious  or  suspected,  and  against  a  false 
or  unsatisfactory  method,  that  most  of  the  sincere  current 
objections  are  raised. 

Thus  far  much  has  been  implied,  but  little  said  of  a  precise 
sort  about  the  nature  of  metaphysics.  Nor  does  it  seem  as 
though  a  lengthy  disquisition  on  this  subject  were  necessary, 
even  in  a  work  proposing  a  systematic  treatment  of  meta- 
physical problems.  Certainly,  the  philological,  historical, 
or  discursive  introductions  which  are  common  at  the  thresh- 
old of  such  an  attempt  have  little  of  real  value.  The  name 
employed  for  the  thing  (metaphysics  =  pera  ra  fyvo-iica)  is 
apparently  of  accidental  origin,  and  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
writings  of  Aristotle  on  "  First  Principles "  were  given  a 
local  position  following  his  writings  on  natural  objects.  But 
before  Aristotle,  and  indeed  from  the  very  beginnings  of  re- 
flective thinking,  philosophy  was  ontological ;  although  more 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND  PROPRIETY     17 

immediately  preceding  him,  it  took  the  form  of  a  discur- 
sive examination  of  the  concepts  which  sum  up,  as  it  were, 
men's  knowledge  of  things,  events,  and  relations.  The  im- 
portant thing  to  notice  in  this  connection  is  that  metaphysics 
should  be  based  on  experience  with  real  things  and  actual  events, 
and  that  it  should  "  follow,"  in  docility  and  yet  in  free  critical 
spirit,  "  upon "  the  particular  sciences  which  treat  of  real 
things  and  actual  events.  But  this  is  something  which 
philology  can  neither  teach  nor  help  us  to  attain. 

The  importance  of  taking  in  detail  the  opinions  of  others 
as  to  the  precise  definition  of  metaphysics  is  also  not  great. 
The  expression  of  these  opinions  differs ;  the  real  thing  re- 
mains the  same.  We  may  take  our  point  of  starting  from 
Ribot's  remark :  "  Metaphysics  is  but  a  most  noble  and 
elevated  manner  of  conceiving  things."  Or  we  may  confess 
to  the  impulse  of  Matthew  Arnold  when  he  declares  :  "  We 
want  first  to  know  what  being  is."  From  these  or  similar 
captivating  and  popular  ways  of  stating  the  problem  and  the 
method  of  metaphysics,  we  may  pass  to  such  carefully  wrought 
conceptions  as  that  of  Mr.  Hodgson.  According  to  this 
author,1  metaphysics  —  most  dependent  and  "  unfixed  "  of 
sciences,  yet  slowly  and  surely  winning  its  way  —  is  "  the 
analysis  of  states  of  consciousness  in  connection  with  their 
objects  ;  the  objective  aspect  as  a  whole  being  summed  up  in 
the  word  '  existence.' "  Or  if  this  seems  to  throw  too  much 
emphasis  on  the  psychological  and  epistemological  approaches 
to  the  problems  of  metaphysics,  we  may  for  the  moment 
adopt  the  definition  of  another  author.  "  By  metaphysics  we 
understand  the  scientific  doctrine  which,  from  the  sensuously 
perceptible  appearance  of  things,  draws  conclusions  as  to 
their  conceptual  essence,  in  order  to  gain  a  true  insight  into 
the  real  being  of  things  in  the  world,  and  of  the  world  itself."2 
This  definition  is,  indeed,  somewhat  too  stilted  ;  and  it  intro- 

1  See  "  Time  and  Space,"  L,  pp.  3  f  and  72  f. 

2  Low,  System  der  Universalphilosophie,  p.  4. 

o 


18  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

duces  rather  prematurely  that  distinction  between  appearance 
and  reality  upon  which  another  more  recent  treatise  on  meta- 
physics has  based  itself.  It  may  further  be  objected  that  we 
are  not  as  yet  by  any  means  sure  whether  an  understanding 
of  the  "  conceptual  essence  "  will,  of  itself,  afford  the  de- 
sirable insight  into  "  the  real  being  of  things."  But  one  can 
well  afford  to  be  lenient  in  respect  of  such  particulars.  And 
when  the  same  writer  expresses  the  intent  of  metaphysics  to 
be  "  a  general  investigation  of  that  essential  being  which 
belongs  in  common  to  all  things,"  we  clearly  recognize  the 
same  difficult  task  as  that  which  is  lying  before  us.  Yet 
again,  we  may  say  with  Rosmini : l  "  Philosophy  is  the 
science  of  ultimate  grounds."  It  is  "  the  work  of  reflection 
carried  forward  to  the  discovery  of  ultimate  grounds  .  .  . 
and  things  real  must  be  treated  in  the  doctrine  of  ultimate 
grounds." 

Breaking  free  for  the  moment  from  all  historical  and 
technical  definition,  let  us  affirm  :  To  get  at  reality  —  this  is 
the  aim  of  metaphysics.  But  this  is  as  well  the  aim  of  all 
knowledge,  quoad  knowledge.  Yet  each  particular  kind  of 
knowledge,  or  particular  cognitive  achievement,  has  an  aim 
beyond  itself ;  and  this  more  ulterior  aim  may  be  expressed 
as  the  right  adjustment  of  the  Self  to  the  concrete  real  things 
of  experience.  Both  these  aims  —  the  more  distinctly  cog- 
nitive, and  the  more  purely  practical  through  the  cognitive  - 
are  pursued  in  their  relations  to  each  other  by  every  man. 
Men  do  not  deal  with  "  Reality  "  as  an  abstraction,  a  mere 
idea;  they  concern  themselves  with  the  infinitely  varied 
realities  of  daily  life.  The  value  of  these  aims  is  as  true  of 
systematic  metaphysics  as  it  is  of  every-day  knowledge,  or 
of  the  more  subtle  and  refined  investigations  of  the  particular 
sciences.  The  plain  man,  the  man  of  science,  and  the  meta- 
physician a  la  mode,  are  all  trying  to  accomplish  essentially 
the  same  thing ;  they  are  all  trying  to  know  reality,  —  more 

l  Philosophical  System  :  Translated  by  Thomas  Davidson,  p.  1  f. 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY     19 

assuredly  that  it  is,  and  more  fully  what  it  is.  They  are  all 
also  trying  by  means  of  this  knowledge  to  get  themselves 
and  others  into  more  favorable  adjustments  to  the  infinitely 
varied  changes  in,human  relations  to  concrete  realities. 

For  the  basic  experience  of  the  plain  man,  of  the  man  of 
science,  and  of  the  metaphysician  "  of  the  school,"  is  essen- 
tially the  same.  With  all  three  the  data  of  experience  and 
the  aims  of  life  are  essentially  the  same  :  Here  am  "  I " ; 
there  art  "  thou "  ;  and  over  yonder,  not  to  be  identified 
with  either  of  us,  are  the  "  things  "  which  determine  our  re- 
lations and  make  for  our  weal  and  woe.  You  and  I  are  con- 
nected with  each  other ;  the  things  are  connected  with  one 
another  ;  and  both  of  us  are  connected  with  many,  or  with 
all  the  things — in  an  intricate  net- work  of  changing  and 
inter-dependent  states.  I  am  real ;  thou  art  real ;  the  things 
are  real ;  and  there  do  actually  exist  manifold  relations 
amongst  these  realities  ;  while  infinitely  varied  changes  are 
taking  place  in  all.  What  am  I  really  ?  What  art  thou  ? 
and  what  are  they  —  those  things,  that  make  up,  together 
with  us,  our  known  world  of  reality  ?  And  what  is  this  X 
that  somehow  guarantees  —  if  we  may  so  speak  —  and  en- 
forces this  system  of  changing  relations?  Whoever  raises 
any  of  these  problems  asks  metaphysical  questions.  Who- 
ever, whether  by  assumption,  by  theory,  by  so-called  faith,  or 
by  conduct,  answers  any  of  them  is  a  metaphysician.  He 
who,  having  an  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  speculative 
opinion  and  taking  to  his  account  the  many  sides  of  seeming 
contradiction  and  the  various  lights  and  shadows  of  judgment, 
pursues  to  some  systematic  conclusion  the  study  of  these 
problems,  is  a  metaphysician  "  of  the  school."  Schopenhauer 
is  as  truly  scholastic  as  Hegel ;  Herbert  Spencer  is  no  less 
professional  than  was  Immanuel  Kant. 

Systematic  metaphysics  is,  then,  the  necessary  result  of 
patient,  orderly,  well-informed,  and  prolonged  study  of  those 
ultimate  problems  which  are  proposed  to  every  reflective 


20  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

mind  by  the  real  existences  and  actual  transactions  of  selves 
and  of  things.  Thus  considered  it  appears  as  the  least  ab- 
stract and  foreign  to  concrete  realities  of  all  the  higher  pur- 
suits of  reason.  Mathematics  is  abstract ;  logic  is  abstract ; 
mathematical  and  so-called  "  pure "  physics  are  abstract. 
But  metaphysics  is  bound  by  its  very  nature  and  calling 
always  to  keep  near  to  the  actual  and  to  the  concrete.  Dive 
into  the  depths  of  speculation,  it  indeed  may;  and  its  ocean 
is  boundless  in  expanse  and  deep  beyond  all  reach  of  human 
plummets.  But  it  finds  its  place  of  standing,  for  every  new 
turn  of  daring  exploration,  on  some  bit  of  solid  ground.  For 
it  is  actuality  which  it  wishes  to  understand  —  although  in 
reflective  and  interpretative  way.  To  quote  from  Professor 
Royce  :  "  The  basis  of  our  whole  theory  is  the  bare,  brute  fact 
of  experience  which  you  have  always  with  you,  namely,  the 
fact :  Something  is  real.  Our  question  is :  What  is  this 
reality  ?  or,  again,  What  is  the  ultimately  real  ?  "  1 

At  this  point,  however,  the  true  nature  and  legitimate 
method  of  metaphysics  cannot  be  understood  without  plac- 
ing its  speculations  in  right  relations  with  two  other  domains 
of  thought.  One  of  these  is  the  domain  covered  in  common  by 
the  particular  sciences  ;  the  other  is  that  provided  by  a  closely 
allied  branch  of  philosophy.  Each  of  the  particular  sciences 
has,  indeed,  its  own  metaphysics.  Its  positive  findings  as  to 
what  is  real  involve  certain  general  assumptions  and  thought- 
forms  of  a  universal  applicability.  Physics  and  chemistry 
both  assume  and  demonstrate  the  truthfulness  of  certain 
conceptions  of  space,  time,  number,  force,  relation,  law,  etc. 
What  the  students  of  these  sciences  mean  by  the  "  truthful- 
ness "  of  these  conceptions  is  their  legitimate  and  successful 
application  to  the  particular  realities  with  which  the  sciences 
deal.  Under  these  conceptions  they  know  the  beings  and 
transactions  which  constitute  their  own  data;  and  their  growing 
knowledge  is  the  amplification  and  correction,  in  application 
to  concrete  realities,  of  these  same  conceptions. 

1  The  Conception  of  God,  p.  207. 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND  PROPRIETY     21 

What  is  true  of  the  sciences  which  deal  with  things  is 
equally  true  of  the  sciences  which  deal  with  minds,  or  with 
both  minds  and  things.  They  all  both  assume  and  demon- 
strate the  truthfulness  of  certain  conceptions,  in  their  appli- 
cation to  the  concrete  realities  with  which  they  have  to  deal. 
Now,  then,  if  this  is  true  of  every  one  of  the  particular 
sciences,  what  is  left  for  metaphysics  to  accomplish,  either 
as  a  system  of  assured  cognitions,  or  as  a  valid  theory  of 
reality  ? 

It  is  just  at  the  point  where  the  inquiry  now  started  makes 
its  appearance  that  the  ministrations  of  metaphysics  become 
useful  and  even  imperative.  For  metaphysics  receives  these 
conceptions  as  they  are  assumed,  applied,  and  expanded,  by 
the  particular  sciences,  and  makes  them  the  objects  of  a 
further  reflective  study.  Such  reflective  study  has  its  justi- 
fication in  the  attempt  to  reach  two  important  ends.  One  of 
these  is  the  end  of  harmony  and  of  unification ;  the  other  is 
the  end  of  insight  and  of  interpretation. 

It  is  natural,  and  on  the  whole  conducive  to  the  advance 
of  human  knowledge,  for  each  of  the  positive  sciences  to 
define  as  precisely  as  possible  its  own  leading  conceptions, 
and  to  endeavor  so  to  extend  the  application  of  them,  thus 
defined,  as  to  include  larger  and  yet  larger  areas  of  phenom- 
ena. As  those  many  interrelations  amongst  the  sciences 
which  are  justified  by  the  real  connections  of  their  phe- 
nomena become  more  obvious,  a  certain  theoretical  unifica- 
tion is  inevitable.  In  this  way  the  world  of  experience  is 
conceived  of  as  a  Unity  —  as  a  system  of  related  beings 
that  share  in  each  other's  essential  characteristics  and  some- 
how rest  upon  a  common  "  World-Ground."  But,  in  fact, 
no  one  of  the  particular  sciences,  as  such,  is  competent  to 
undertake  the  perfection  of  this  work  of  unification.  In 
fact,  also,  the  attempt  at  such  unifying  in  terms  of  any  one 
science  results  in  no  little  misrepresentation  of  facts,  and  in 
the  extension  of  science  only  falsely  so-called.  The  attempt 


22  A   THEOKY  OF   REALITY 

to  take  the  part  of  general  metaphysics  by  the  devotees  of 
any  one  of  the  particular  sciences  favors  schemes  for  "  pick- 
ing and  stealing "  from  each  other ;  or  it  results  in  gigantic 
plans  for  the  robbery  of  entire  domains,  after  the  fashion  of 
the  barons  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Is  not  the  age  familiar 
enough,  for  example,  with  proposals  for  a  mathematical  theory 
of  the  universe,  which  shall  reduce  all  reality  under  the 
categories  of  number  and  quantity,  formulate  the  equations 
which  must  avail  between  minds  and  spirits,  and  plot  the 
curve  along  which  the  Absolute  is  destined  to  move  in  its 
endless  round  of  self-creations  and  self-destructions  ?  Has 
not  physics  repeatedly  tried  to  reduce  chemistry  to  the  condi- 
tion of  a  subject;  and  have  not  we  psychologists  —  only, 
alas!  too,  persuasively  —  been  promised  salvation  from  our 
chronic  irregularities  of  growth,  if  only  we  will  become  abso- 
lutely dependent  branches  on  the  flourishing  trunk  of  modern 
evolutionary  biology  ? 

The  work  of  systematic  metaphysics  with  the  categories  of 
the  particular  sciences,  is  the  work  both  of  critic  and  of 
arbiter.  The  facts  admitted  and  proved  by  them  all,  it  freely 
admits.  For  its  business  is  to  reflect  upon  the  world  of  fact. 
The  generalizations  of  the  particular  sciences,  and  the  more 
precise  forms  of  the  leading  conceptions  employed  by  them 
all,  it  receives  with  caution  and  yet  with  the  greatest  docil- 
ity. But  to  compare  these  generalizations,  these  more  pre- 
cise forms  of  the  categories,  with  one  another,  to  scrutinize 
each  in  the  light  of  all,  and  to  subject  them  to  further  reflec- 
tion in  the  interests  of  harmony  and  unification  —  this  is  the 
very  essence  of  the  life  of  metaphysics. 

The  work  of  systematic  metaphysics  is  also  a  work  of 
interpretation.  Concerning  "  Reality  "  —  that  is,  concerning 
all  real  things  and  minds  and  all  actual  events  —  we  ask 
not  only  to  be  assured  that  it  is,  and  what  it  is,  but  we 
should  like  to  know  its  meaning.  All  cognition  is,  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent,  interpretative.  I  do  not  know  you, 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY     23 

what  you  really  are,  unless  I  have  known,  and  may 
continue  to  know,  what  you  mean.  It  is  interpretation  of 
your  past  expressions  which  enables  me  to  form  the  con- 
ception of  what  you  really  are.  And  if  I  cannot  interpret 
the  different  successive  impressions  into  terms  of  some  con- 
sistent theory,  I  can  never  know  your  real  being.  Your 
being,  so  far  forth,  must  remain  an  insoluble  riddle  to  me. 
And  what  is  true  of  minds  in  their  relations  to  one  another 
is  also  true  of  things  in  their  relations  to  minds.  I  may  state 
what  that  chair  over  yonder  really  is,  in  terms  of  ordinary 
knowledge  or  in  terms  of  the  sciences  of  mechanics,  physics, 
chemistry,  and  so  on.  But  unless  I  interpret  it  as  an  invita- 
tion to  sit  down,  and  as  a  promise  of  safety  and  of  rest  in 
case  I  so  make  use  of  it,  I  do  not  know  all  that  the  chair 
really  is.  In  the  event  of  anything  coming  into  relations  of 
knowledge  with  me,  or  even  being  proposed  as  a  possible 
object  of  my  knowledge,  I  am  intellectually  and  practically 
bound  to  ask  the  question :  What  does  this  particular  thing 
mean?  What  shall  I  understand  by  it?  The  answer  to  the 
inquiry  for  interpretation,  even  if  it  come  only  in  the  form 
of  a  rational  guess  or  a  promising  surmise,  always  throws 
some  beam  of  light  back  upon  the  real  nature  of  the  object 
of  cognition.  Indeed,  man's  whole  world  of  reality — and  this 
never  means  anything  more  than  the  complex  of  beings  and 
events  which  he  knows,  with  all  that  seems  to  him  impli- 
cated in  this  complex  —  is  a  problem  for  his  interpretation 
as  well  as  for  cognition  of  bare  facts  and  mere  laws.  It, 
too,  —  the  Reality  which  this  world  is  —  needs  to  have  the 
inquiry  as  to  its  meaning  raised.  And  so  far  forth  as 
this  inquiry  is  raised,  and  can  be  answered,  so  far  does 
man  know  more  essentially  and  completely  what  his  total 
world  of  experience  really  is. 

Now  we  are  far  enough  from  being  able  to  interpret  com- 
pletely the  meaning  of  any  single  thing,  or  of  any  particular 
event.  That  stone  or  clod  beneath  our  feet,  that  wretched 


24  A  THEORY   OF  EEALITY 

and  narrow  mind  just  encountered  on  the  street,  that  trifling 
event  of  the  door-bell  ringing  or  of  the  snow  sliding  from  the 
roof,  we  can  never  know,  under  any  of  the  categories  or  in 
terms  of  any  of  the  sciences,  to  perfection.  Whatever  it  is, 
and  whatever  it  means,  each  thing  and  each  event  is,  and 
means,  far  too  much  for  any  human  mind  fully  to  compass  it 
with  cognition  or  with  conjectures.  And,  of  course,  the  full 
meaning  of  the  whole  world  of  beings  and  events,  even  as  they 
are  caught  and  confined  in  the  net-work  of  the  categories,  is  far 
beyond  all  human  comprehension  or  all  the  most  adroit  and 
daring  of  human  hypotheses.  Nevertheless,  human  knowledge 
is  increased,  and  human  living  is  made  higher  and  nobler,  by 
the  judicious  use  of  interpretation.  Even  man's  guesses  as  to 
what  is  the  meaning  of  the  world  and  of  human  life,  if  the 
guesses  are  made  in  accordance  with  the  demands  of  right 
reason  and  in  the  interests  of  righteous  conduct,  may  enable 
him  to  know  reality  the  better.  And  it  is  certain  that  where 
the  meaning  of  what  is  known  as  actual  is  even  partially  and 
dubiously  determined  in  accordance  with  the  facts  of  experience, 
the  knowledge  of  the  nature  of  what  is  actual  is  enhanced. 

The  positive  sciences  are  wont  to  disclaim  that  method  of 
investigation  which  might  be  called  "  following  the  clue  of  the 
interpretative  idea."  Nevertheless  they  have,  in  fact  and  as 
their  history  abundantly  shows,  gained  most  of  all  they  pos- 
sess in  this  very  way.  But  what  the  positive  sciences  do  for 
particular  classes  of  facts,  and  without  full  consciousness  of 
either  method  or  mission,  metaphysics  tries  to  do,  with  fuller 
consciousness  of  both  method  and  mission,  for  the  whole 
world  of  facts.  This  is,  indeed,  a  bold  venture.  But  when 
it  is  said,  "  We  want  to  know  what  being  is"  does  not  this 
include,  in  part,  "  We  want  to  know  what  being  means "  ? 

The  two  considerations  just  brought  forward  enable  us  to 
regard  the  problem  of  systematic  metaphysics  from  a  some- 
what different  point  of  view.  Critical  and  speculative  study 
does,  indeed,  concern  itself  with  realities,  and  with  realities 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND   PROPRIETY      25 

only, —  that  they  are,  what  they  are,  and  what  they  mean. 
But  its  approach  to  these  realities,  in  their  concrete  forms  of 
differentiation,  their  particular  relations,  their  special  signifi- 
cances and  uses,  is  not  by  any  means  so  direct  and  immediate 
as  that  which  is  demanded  for  the  purposes  of  our  daily  living 
or  of  the  positive  sciences.  The  "  stuff "  out  of  which  the 
structure  of  an  ontological  theory  is  to  be  built  is  not  re- 
ceived raw  and  at  first  hand,  as  it  were.  It  is  received  after 
being  already  worked  over  by  the  concurrent  intellectual 
processes  of  many  generations,  and  after  having  long-time 
ago  entered  into  the  entire  life  of  man.  The  subject-matter 
of  metaphysical  system  is  the  so-called  categories,  as  far  as 
they  are  universally  applied  to  real  beings  and  to  actual 
events  ;  it  is  the  forms  of  human  knowledge  considered  as  the 
forms  of  reality.  This  is,  in  part,  what  was  meant  when  it 
was  pointed  out  that  the  conceptions  which  the  common  con- 
sciousness and  the  particular  sciences  assume  to  be  valid,  and 
find  valid,  for  all  concrete  realities,  need  a  subsequent  work 
of  criticism,  of  unifying,  and  of  interpretation. 

It  requires  only  a  modicum  of  insight  to  discover  that  the 
structure  of  every  metaphysical  system,  like  the  work  of  every 
individual  cognition,  —  no  matter  how  insignificant  and  how 
isolated  the  object  of  such  individual  act  of  knowing  may 
seem  to  be  —  rests  upon  a  foundation  of  assumption.  Meta- 
physics deals  with  the  forms  of  all  knowledge  "  considered  as  " 
the  forms  of  all  reality  ;  ergo  it  is  inevitably  assumed  that 
the  forms  of  knowledge  are  the  forms  of  reality.  To  discover 
this  assumption,  by  a  complete  analysis  of  human  cognitive 
consciousness ;  to  discover  its  genesis,  and  to  validate  it,  as 
far  as  possible,  for  all  experience ;  to  reduce  the  assumption 
to  such  proportions  that  no  attack  from  any  quarter  can  lay 
hold  upon  it  for  its  destruction  ;  to  exhibit  in  detail  its  signifi- 
cance for  the  life  of  the  knower  and  for  the  implied  nature  of 
his  object  of  knowledge  —  all  this,  and  more  of  the  same  sort 
of  philosophical  discussion,  belongs  to  epistemology.  A  theory 


26  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

of  knowledge  is  as  agnostic  as  possible  at  the  beginning ;  it  is 
designedly  and  definitively  sceptical  and  critical  all  the  way 
through.  But  the  very  proposal  to  frame  a  theory  of  reality 
renders  impossible  and  absurd  the  continuance  in  the  agnostic 
and  sceptical  attitude  toward  human  cognition.  Systematic 
metaphysics  must  enter  upon  its  attempt  to  treat  the  cate- 
gories of  reality  in  a  critical  and  harmonizing  and  interpre- 
tative way,  by  a  complete  abandonment  of  the  persistently 
sceptical  and  agnostic  points  of  view.  Its  task  is  the  critical 
and  constructive  study  of  those  universal  conceptions  under 
which  all  concrete  real  beings  and  all  actual  events  are  known 
'by  all  men ;  but  always  in  the  good  faith  that  its  results  are 
entitled  to  a  confidence  which  is  proportioned  to  the  range  to 
which  such  study  can  be  extended,  and  to  the  fidelity  with 
which  the  obligations  of  such  study  can  be  discharged. 

To  keep  epistemological  and  metaphysical  discussions 
wholly  apart  from  each  other  is  indeed  a  difficult,  and  per- 
haps it  is  an  impossible  achievement.  And  all  students  of 
the  history  of  reflective  thinking  know  what  dispute  has  been 
carried  on  as  to  the  precedence  of  epistemology  or  meta- 
physics. Shall  one  venture  to  construct  an  elaborate  theory  of 
reality  before  one  has  thoroughly  criticised  the  human  cognitive 
faculty  to  see  whether  so  great  an  achievement  is  possible  for 
such  faculty  ?  From  the  point  of  view  of  the  Kantian  criti- 
cism this  order  of  procedure  is  illusory  and  absurd.  But  to 
insist  upon  settling  questions  of  a  critique  of  all  reason  before 
making  use  of  reason  to  extend  to  the  utmost  limit  our  knowl- 
edge of  reality,  is,  according  to  Hegel,  like  refusing  to  go 
near  the  water  until  one  has  learned  to  swim.  At  present 
we  do  not  care  which  side  of  these  distinguished  contestants 
is  in  the  right  upon  the  point  of  order.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
we  have  discussed  the  epistemological  problems  in  a  previous 
work ;  and  there  we  have  fought  it  out  with  sceptical  and 
agnostic  objections  to  the  validity  and  limits  of  human  knowl- 
edge. The  conclusions  there  reached  render  unassailable,  in 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,  AND  PROPRIETY     27 

our  judgment,  the  soundness  of  that  epistemological  assumption 
which  is  of  the  very  essence  of  all  knowledge,  and  which  is 
indispensable  for  every  attempt  at  a  systematic  metaphysics. 
The  critical  theory  of  knowledge  justifies  belief  in  the  power 
of  the  human  mind  to  know  reality,  and  even  to  give  it  a 
measurably  consistent,  satisfying,  and  helpful  theoretical  deter- 
mination. On  the  other  hand,  the  fundamental  assumption, 
as  respects  its  theory  of  knowledge,  made  by  every  attempt 
at  a  system  of  metaphysics  is  the  denial  of  the  conclusion  of 
agnosticism.  The  necessary  forms  of  human  cognition  are  not 
impotencies  of  understanding,  but  potencies  of  reason  ;  they  are 
not  limitations  of  the  sphere  of  vision,  but  insights  into  the 
nature  of  Reality. 

This  right  to  employ,  in  courage  and  in  good  faith,  the 
reflective  faculties  so  as  to  validate  an  attempt  to  grasp  to- 
gether and  illumine  all  the  concrete  real  things  and  actual 
events  and  relations  of  human  experience  in  some  unifying 
way,  is  not  the  special  or  exclusive  possession  of  any  thinker. 
Neither  is  it  limited  in  its  application  to  systematic  meta- 
physics or  to  "  school "  philosophy.  It  is  needed  to  convert 
all  science  into  something  better  than  a  logical  arrangement 
of  mere  ideas  ;  it  is,  indeed,  the  assumption  which  all  positive 
science  makes  when  it  virtually  refuses  to  regard  itself  as 
anything  less  important  and  a3sthetically  impressive  than  a 
system  of  cognitions  and  conjectures  touching  the  nature  of 
reality.  So,  then,  in  assuming  the  positive  standpoint  of 
faith  in  human  reason  which  has  been  attained  by  previous 
epistemological  discussion,  we  are  only  defining  the  right  which 
belongs  to  metaphysics  in  general.  The  right  we  expect  to 
exercise  is  extended  to  all  others ;  for  it  belongs  to  all  others. 
It  is  the  right  to  transcend  the  sceptical  method,  to  leave 
wholly  behind  the  agnostic  point  of  view ;  and  without  further 
reference  to  sceptical  and  agnostic  objections  and  inquiries  — 
whether  legitimate  or  illegitimate,  reasonable  or  absurd  —  to 
push  reflection  as  far  as  possible  toward  a  consistent  and 
satisfactory  Theory  of  Reality. 


28  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

Little  beyond  what  has  already  been  implied  need  now  be 
said  concerning  the  method  of  metaphysics.  Here  as  usual, 
while  method  is  of  much  importance,  discussion  of  method  is 
of  comparatively  small  value.  Indeed,  the  method  of  system- 
atic metaphysics  is  quite  closely  defined  by  the  very  concep- 
tion of  the  nature  of  systematic  metaphysics.  All  cognitive 
experience  is  of,  and  about  reality.  It  is  real  things,  actual 
events,  and  actual  relations,  of  arid  about  which  men  have 
and  affirm  knowledge.  This  is  true  whether  such  knowledge 
is  ordinary  or  scientific  or  philosophical.  Inasmuch,  then, 
as  systematic  metaphysics  aims  at  a  theory  of  reality,  it  must 
ever  face  this  cognitive  experience ;  and  as  it  faces  experience, 
metaphysics  reflects  upon  that  which  it  faces.  Nothing  can 
easily  be  more  false  and  misleading  as  to  the  proper  way  of 
arriving  at  metaphysical  truth  than  to  follow  literally  the 
injunctions  of  the  German  writer  who  declares:  "Experience 
must  be  subordinated  to  the  concept.  .  .  .  Experience  can  give 
us  only  perspective  pictures  ;  and,  therefore,  only  what  belongs 
to  the  inner  world."  l  But  metaphysics  follows  experience 
with  the  reflective  method,  and  in  the  full  confidence  that  ex- 
perience does  give  us  something  more  than  "  perspective  pict- 
ures," —  namely,  a  trustworthy  knowledge  of  the  real  world 
both  of  things  and  of  minds.  In  the  use  of  its  method  it 
recognizes,  however,  the  pertinency  of  Boyle's  way  of  stating 
the  case :  u  When  we  say  experience  corrects  reason,  't  is  an 
improper  way  of  speaking ;  since  't  is  reason  itself  that,  upon 
information  of  experience,  corrects  the  judgment  it  had  made 
before."  The  recognition  and  the  rationalizing  of  all  our  ex- 
perience with  reality  is  the  method  of  metaphysical  system. 

The  relation  in  which  systematic  metaphysics  places  itself 
toward  the  particular  sciences  has  already  been  indicated  as 
something  belonging  to  its  very  nature.  But  the  same  relation 
also  determines  the  method  of  metaphysics.  It  is  receptive 
toward  all  the  principles  and  conceptions  of  these  sciences,  so 

1  Teichmuller,  Die  wirkliche  und  die  scheinbare  Welt,  p.  233. 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,   AND  PROPRIETY     29 

far  as  they  deal  with  the  particular  kinds  of  reality.  But  it  is 
critical  of  all  these  principles  and  conceptions  ;  for  its  purpose 
is  to  determine  the  limits,  the  rights,  and  the  connections,  of 
each  of  them  in  its  relation  to  all.  And  thus  metaphysics 
becomes  in  its  aim  and  conclusions  synthetic  and  constructive. 
For  it  aims  to  harmonize  and  interpret  the  assumptions  and 
the  conclusions  of  the  particular  sciences  in  the  light  of  the 
highest  and  most  comprehensive  reflection. 

Metaphysics  then  employs  the  critical  and  constructive 
method  in  its  study  of  the  universal  forms  of  knowledge  — 
the  so-called  "  categories  "  —  in  no  merely  formal  way.  It  is 
not  its  ultimate  purpose  simply  to  catalogue  the  categories,  to 
know  what  they  are,  and  to  attach  more  precise  meanings  to 
them  when  their  names  are  called.  Its  purpose  is  rather,  by 
accepting  them  as  the  universally  recognized  forms  of  concrete 
realities,  to  reflect  upon  them  so  as  to  frame,  if  possible,  a 
consistent  and  satisfying  theory  of  reality. 

In  concluding  these  introductory  remarks  it  may  be  said 
that  the  propriety  of  any  particular  attempt  at  systematic 
metaphysics  depends  upon  a  number  of  particulars.  That 
such  attempts  will  be  made  from  time  to  time  is  as  certain  as 
that  men  will  continue  to  reflect  upon  the  problems  offered 
by  their  own  lives  and  by  the  environment  of  the  universe  in 
which  these  lives  arise  and  pass  away.  Some  roots  in  human 
nature  which  make  metaphysics  persist  in  spite  of  popular 
neglect,  and  notwithstanding  the  pride  of  positive  and  definite 
scientific  knowledge,  must  certainly  be  allowed  in  order  to 
account  for  the  recurrence  of  these  attempts.  Surely  they 
are  not  undertaken  for  the  material  profit  which  is  in  them. 
Nor  do  we  believe  that  the  remark  of  Riehl  goes  very  deep 
into  the  truth  when  he  ascribes  metaphysics  to  "  a  natural 
hankering  of  man  after  the  measureless  and  the  illimitable." 
But  whether  any  particular  individual,  with  any  measure  of 
propriety  or  success,  shall  undertake  so  thankless  a  task,  it 
depends  upon  himself  to  judge  in  the  first  instance,  and  in 


30  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  last  upon  his  contemporaries  and  his  successors.  Above 
all  he  should  make  up  his  mind  to  keep  himself  free  from 
what  the  Greeks  called  Kpoicv\ej^  (dealing  in  trifles)  and 
from  ^v^porys  (ambitious  conceits). 

The  reflections  just  made  may  fitly  lead  to  confession,  to 
apology,  and  to  appeal  for  indulgence.  The  following  attempt 
at  a  sketch  of  an  ontological  theory  does  not  pretend  to  be 
either  infallible,  or  complete,  or  even  conclusive  from  every 
point  of  view.  It  is,  of  course,  nothing  more  important  than 
certain  opinions,  about  a  set  of  very  profound  and  difficult 
problems,  expounded  in  an  orderly  way  by  an  individual 
thinker.  That  one's  peculiar  standpoints  and  views  on 
special  problems,  and  especially  one's  ethical  and  religious 
faiths  and  tendencies,  should  have  an  influence  upon  one's 
general  ontological  theory,  is  probably  inevitable.  Indeed^ 
although  metaphysics  professedly  deals  with  the  universal  and 
the  unchanging,  every  particular  instance  of  such  dealing  is 
the  product  of  the  individual  and  of  his  age.  Hence  there  is 
peculiar  need  that  every  man  who,  anew  and  for  himself 
primarily,  and  then  for  his  day  and  generation,  approaches 
these  problems,  should  orientate  himself  —  intelligently  and 
self-consciously  as  it  were.  How  conscientiously  any  author 
has  done  this,  it  is  not  becoming  for  him  to  explain  ;  how 
successfully,  it  is  not  becoming  for  him  to  judge.  Enough 
that  the  result  be  received  as  the  contribution  of  a  single 
mind  to  the  increase  of  the  general  stock  of  reflective 
thinking. 

But,  however  any  thinker  may  resolve  to  be  independent 
and  uninfluenced  in  his  metaphysics  by  prevalent  views,  the 
Zeitgeist  will  doubtless  have  certain  conceptions  to  empha- 
size and  thoughts  to  express.  Even  the  few  teachers  for  all 
ages  are  also  the  children  of  their  own  age.  And  for  the 
great  multitude  of  students  of  metaphysics,  what  individuals 
think  about  these  universal  and  eternal  problems  is  (however 
deftly  concealed,  or  expressed  in  idiosyncracies  of  language, 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,  AND   PROPRIETY     31 

or  "  made  over  "  for  the  season,  like  the  black  silks  which  our 
grandmothers  used  to  wear)  little  else  than  the  thought  that 
is  the  current  opinion  of  their  age.  We  say  of  their  age  ; 
and  this  may  mean  of  the  particular  coterie  to  which  they 
belong,  —  a  selected  specialization  of  the  spirit  of  their  time. 

There  are  two  comprehensive  conceptions  which  seem  to  us 
to  be  shaping  the  thought  and  the  conduct  of  the  present  age. 
These  are,  of  course,  not  new,  either  in  their  total  complexion 
or  in  any  of  their  most  important  factors  ;  otherwise  they 
could  not  be  so  comprehensive  and  influential  as  they  are. 
But  they  are  receiving  new  and  enlarged  meanings ;  they 
are  made  to  serve  more  extended  and  illumining  uses.  These 
are  the  conception  of  Evolution,  of  the  principle  of  becoming,, 
and  the  conception  of  Self-hood,  especially  as  having  its  roots 
in,  and  its  reaching  out  into,  social  connections.  What 
wonder,  then,  if  our  theory  of  reality  finds  itself  compelled  to 
regard  all  the  concrete  being  of  things  and  of  minds  as  a 
process  of  becoming,  somehow  related  (and  we  will  wait  to 
choose  our  words,  whether  u  creation,"  "  manifestation," 
"revelation,"  etc.)  to  the  Being  of  an  Absolute  Self? 

And  now  one  can  easily  anticipate  objections  which  it  is  of 
little  use  at  present  trying  to  remove.  Let  it  be  confessed,  at 
once  and  for  all,  that  our  theory  of  reality  is  anthropomorphic. 
But  so  is  all  science,  and  so  is  every  form  of  philosophy.  So 
also,  of  course,  is  the  most  ordinary  and  yet  most  fundamental 
cognitive  experience.  Metaphysics,  we  repeat,  is  severely 
critical  —  but  not  of  the  faculty,  or  power,  of  cognition ;  it  is 
critical  rather  of  the  actual  results  of  cognition.  It  is  indeed 
only  of  all  things  and  transactions  as  known  to  us  —  finite  in- 
tellects, prone  to  deception,  groping  in  darkness,  in  restricted 
commerce  with  things  of  sense  —  that  metaphysics  can  claim 
to  treat.  But  the  only  things  that  can  exist  for  us  are  the 
things  known  ly  us,  and  the  things  somehow  implied  in  them. 
We  will  lay  aside  for  the  time  any  mixture  of  half-insane 
scepticism,  and  take  ourselves  and  our  fellow-men  with  courage 


A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

and  with  good  faith.  We  will  study  the  universal  and  eter- 
nal forms  of  man's  knowledge  of  things  as  the  universal  and 
eternal  forms  of  the  things  known ;  and  we  will  see  whether 
we  cannot  in  this  way  get  a  grasp  upon  some  supreme  and 
ultimate  truths  to  be  learned  about  the  universal  and  eternal 
nature  of  Reality.  We  will  begin  and  continue  our  search  for 
truth  with  confidence  in  theoretical  reason ;  all  the  way  we 
will  not  suffer  ourselves  to  become  mere  critics  of  the  cogni- 
tive faculty.  For  from  the  sole  standpoint  of  Kant's  Kritik 
der  reinen  Vernunft  no  man  can  so  much  as  invest  with  any 
satisfactory  content  the  words  all  men  agree  in  using  to 
express  the  indubitable  common  experience  with  the  real 
things  and  the  actual  events  of  the  world. 

".  Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things  :  "  this  is  a  very  old 
saying ;  science  has  much  impugned  it  of  late ;  its  falsity  or 
truthfulness  depends  upon  how  it  is  understood.  But  if, 
rightly  understood,  it  is  to  be  called  rationalism,  then  no 
dogmatism  can  be  so  little  rationalistic  and  weakly  critical  as 
to  avoid  being  forced  to  this  conclusion ;  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  to  be  called  dogmatism,  then  no  rationalism  or 
criticism  can  be  so  little  dogmatic  as  to  avoid  taking  refuge  — 
however  covertly  —  in  this  assumption.  The  meaning  in 
which  we  accept  the  ancient  dictum  has  been  defined  in  detail 
as  a  philosophy  of  knowledge.  The  way  man  does  actually 
measure  all  things  and  embody  his  measurements  in  a  system 
of  cognitions  must  now  conduct  us  to  a  theory  of  reality.  The 
traditional  metaphysician  —  to  adopt  Hegel's  figure  of  speech 
—  paints  his  entire  picture  in  shades  of  gray  (Grrau  in 
Ct-rau)  ;  and  this,  as  he  thinks,  is  because  the  metaphysician 
has  upon  his  palette  only  the  "  abstract  essence  of  the  cat- 
egories" (das  ganz  Abstraote  der  Begriffe).  If  this  our 
metaphysical  picture  has  in  it  a  bit  of  vivid  coloring  here 
and  there,  it  will  be  because  we  hold  that  the  categories 
are  significant  as  forms  of  life  in  both  the  subject  and 
the  object;  and  that  every  concrete  fragment  and  separate 


METAPHYSICS:    NATURE,  METHOD,  AND  PROPRIETY     33 

event  is  a  factor,  and  a  pulsation,  significant  of  something 
more  than  a  mere  reign  of  law,  and  more  than  a  logical 
arrangement  of  ideas  and  thoughts.  For  the  total  interests  of 
humanity  demand  a  Theory  of  Reality  which  shall  be,  on  the  one 
hand,  firmly  founded  in  cognitive  experience,  and  on  the  other 
hand,  well  adapted  to  serve  all  man's  practical  needs.  The 
construction  of  a  tenable  and  comforting  philosophy  is  a  work 
of  good-will ;  it  is  a  beneficent  deed,  a  gift  of  blessing  to 
humanity. 


CHAPTER  II 

PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY 

AT  the  very  threshold  of  every  ontological  structure  stands 
a  distinction  which  must  somehow  be  recognized,  but  which, 
by  the  precise  form  given  to  its  significance,  exercises  an 
important  influence  upon  the  structure  itself.  The  terms  in 
which  this  distinction  has  been  embodied  are  somewhat  varia- 
ble, while  its  essential  relation  to  metaphysical  system  has 
remained  the  same.  In  this  way  several  pairs  of  words  have 
arisen  and  become  more  or  less  fixed  in  the  terminology  of 
philosophy ;  such  are  the  Heraclitic  and  the  Eleatic  contrast 
of  Becoming  and  Being,  the  Platonic  contrast  of  the  sensible 
thing  with  the  Idea  of  which  it  is  the  shadow,  the  Kantian 
thing  as  an  object  of  knowledge  and  the  "  Thing-in-itself,"  or 
the  cognizable  concrete  realities  and  the  unknown  Real.  In 
similar  manner  has  Mr.  Spencer  contrasted  his  one  Unknown 
Force,  with  its  own  multifarious  "  manifestations."  From 
Parmenides  to  Mr.  Bradley,  though  with  different  shades  of 
meaning  and  with  different  conclusions  drawn  from  the  dis- 
tinction, man's  total  experience  has  been  customarily  divided 
between  "  Appearance  "  and  "  Reality."  Noumenal  and  phe- 
nomenal, actuality  and  manifestation,  die  wirkliche  und  die 
scheinbare  Welt  —  these  and  similar  expressions  involve,  in 
differing  ways  and  from  different  points  of  view,  essentially 
the  same  thought. 

The  philological  and  historical  examination  of  the  concep- 
tions embodied  in  such  terms  as  those  just  mentioned  is 
interesting,  and  may  be  made  to  throw  some  light  upon  the 


UNIVERSITY 
PHENOMENON  AND   ACTUALITY    Vo*         35 


nature  of  metaphysical  problems.  A  criticism  of  the  various 
shades  to  the  distinction  upon  which  the  conceptions  are 
based  is  of  more  value.  But  to  approach  in  either  of  these 
ways  the  theme  suggested  by  the  title  of  this  chapter  would 
not  greatly  further  the  main  purpose  of  metaphysical  discus- 
sion. The  end  of  such  discussion  is  a  theory  of  reality  that 
shall  harmonize  and  give  significance,  so  far  as  human  powers 
of  reflection  can,  to  all  the  work-a-day  as  well  as  to  the 
scientific  cognitions  of  men  respecting  concrete  real  things 
and  actual  events.  But  in  the  attempt  to  do  this  we  are  met 
by  opinions  —  as  old  as  philosophy  itself  —  which  regard 
this  reality,  about  whose  nature  we  are  seeking  a  theoretical 
construction,  apart  from,  or  in  sharp  contrast  with,  our  work- 
a-day  and  our  scientific  experience.  It  seems,  then,  as  though 
we  could  not  get  at  "  genuine  "  Reality,  in  order  to  examine 
studiously  its  essence  and  its  import,  until  we  have  separated 
it  from  an  admixture  of  mere  appearance,  an  envelope  or 
shroud  of  the  phenomenal.  To  avoid  the  distinction  appears 
to  be  equivalent  to  a  dismissal  of  the  entire  problem  of  onto- 
logical  speculation,  as  this  problem  has  been  conceived  and 
cultivated  during  all  the  generations  of  thinkers  in  philos- 
ophy. But  to  admit  the  distinction  in  the  form  customarily 
given  to  it  is  likely  to  end  in  the  virtual  confession  that  this 
problem  is  not  only  insoluble,  but  even  profitless  and  illusory. 

We  accept,  then,  the  distinction  between  Phenomenon  and 
Actuality  (or  whatever  other  pairs  of  terms  one  chooses  for 
the  expression  of  a  similar  result  of  reflective  thinking)  as 
essential  to  be  observed  for  the  student  of  systematic  meta- 
physics. But  the  way  in  which  the  distinction  is  to  be  made 
and  carried  out  must  be  critically  examined.  To  determine 
its  psychological  origin  and  its  ontological  import  and  value  is 
an  indispensable  part  of  an  introduction  to  our  further  task. 

The  psychological  origin  of  the  distinction  between  phenom- 
enon and  actuality,  or  between  "  the  apparent  "  and  "  the 
real,"  is  to  be  found  in  the  process  of  knowledge  itself  —  as  a 


36  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

development  both  in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
race.  This  distinction  is,  indeed,  the  necessary  result  of  all 
growth  whatever  in  reflective  thinking,  and  even  of  the  exercise 
of  cognitive  faculty.  While  the  primary  acts  of  knowledge 
are  forming  in  the  infantile  stream  of  consciousness  no  such 
distinction  is  manifest  or  actually  made.  Only  the  Jcnower 
heeds  the  difference  between  what  is  and  what  merely  seems  to 
be.  For  the  infant,  the  actual  is  only  phenomenal  and  the 
phenomenal  is  the  only  actual.  We  whose  very  life  blood  is 
tinged  with  this  distinction,  who  have  so  often  been  deceived 
by  ourselves  and  by  others  and  by  things,  cannot  put  our- 
selves in  imagination  back  into  that  naive  and  trusting 
infantile  consciousness.  But  all  our  science  of  its  states 
shows  us  that  it  is  impulsively  active  and  indiscriminatingly 
receptive.  It  does  what  it  is  psycho- physically  moved  to 
do ;  and  it  takes  what  of  experience  comes  to  it.  It  is  neither 
sceptical,  nor  critical,  nor  agnostic  ;  and  so  long  as  it  knows 
neither  its  Self  nor  any  Thing,  it  is  incapable  of  making  any 
distinction  resembling  that  between  appearance  and  reality. 
With  the  development  of  the  knowledge  of  self  and  the 
knowledge  of  things,  the  distinction  which  philosophy  has 
so  often  misunderstood  and  abused  becomes  inevitable  and 
actual  matter  of  fact  in  every  human  consciousness.  This 
distinction  is  probably  first  emphasized  and  worked  into  ex- 
perience by  commerce  with  external  things.  For  these 
objects  are  known  to  all  men  by  various  senses,  under  condi- 
tions that  are  seldom  twice  precisely  alike,  and  in  an  almost 
infinite  variety  of  aspects.  But  whenever  and  however 
known,  they  are  likely  to  be  of  important  practical  interest ; 
and  they  mislead  us  in  a  practical  way  quite  too  often  to  per- 
mit us  to  place  an  unwavering  confidence  in  our  knowledge  of 
them  —  what  they  are  and  what  they  will  do.  The  child  who 
expects  pleasure  from  grasping  the  candle,  or  from  tasting 
the  pepper,  or  from  caressing  the  ill-natured  dog,  or  from 
snatching  the  older  boy's  toy,  or  from  stuffing  himself  with 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  37 

sweets,  gets  his  early  lessons  in  the  distinction  that  things 
are  not  always  as  they  seem. 

This  same  lesson  in  making  distinctions  between  appear- 
ances for  practical  ends,  received  in  essentially  the  same  way 
and  entitled  to  no  less  and  no  more  of  significance,  is  what 
the  particular  sciences  are  learning  from  day  to  day.  In 
their  learning  of  the  lesson,  however,  the  distinction  becomes 
something  other  than  that  which  it  is  for  the  child ;  it  ceases 
to  be  any  longer  merely  the  correction  of  one  judgment 
made  upon  a  basis  of  one  class  of  sensuous  experiences  by 
another  judgment  resting  upon  another  kind  of  sensuous 
experiences.  While  it  does  not  wholly  lose  its  more  childish 
and  practical  significance,  it  becomes  a  distinction  between 
the  obvious  and  sensible  qualities  and  changes  of  things, 
considered  as  effects,  and  those  hidden,  inferred  powers  and 
changes  which  science  investigates  as  the  causes  of  these 
effects. 

In  the  one  case,  the  thing  or  the  event  cognized  in  a  judg- 
ment made  on  grounds  of  observation  by  one  sense  may  be 
said  to  be  only  "  apparent"  as  contrasted  with  the  same  thing 
or  event  cognized  in  a  judgment  made  on  grounds  of  another 
sense.  In  the  other  case,  all  judgments  made  on  grounds  of 
observation  by  the  senses  may  be  called  "  apparent "  as  con- 
trasted with  those  more  general  judgments  which  science 
feels  itself  competent  to  pass  upon  the  causes  of  all  sensuous 
judgments.  From  the  one  point  of  view,  the  stick  which 
seems  bent  in  the  water  is  the  appearance;  and  the  stick 
which  we  plainly  see  not  to  be  bent  when  it  is  taken  out  of 
the  water,  is  the  actual  stick.  From  the  other  point  of  view, 
the  flash  of  lightning  or  the  spark  which  seems  to  pass,  and 
actually  does  pass,  from  A  to  It  is  the  phenomenon ;  the 
rapid  undulation  of  the  ether,  which  is  now  electricity  and 
anon  is  light,  is  the  cause  in  reality  of  the  phenomenon. 

But,  plainly,  man's  reflective  thinking  cannot  stop  at  this 
point  in  its  distinction  between  appearance  and  reality.  It 


38  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

cannot  continue  uncritically  to  assign  the  data  of  sense-per- 
ception to  the  former  and  limit  the  application  of  the  latter 
to  the  construction  of  rational  hypotheses.  To  recur  to 
the  example  just  mentioned :  we  must  go  on  to  inquire, 
What  is  the  superior  actuality  of  this  hypothetical  entity 
called  ether,  and  of  the  theoretical  movements  which  are 
assumed  to  take  place  in  it,  but  of  which  no  direct  witness  by 
the  objective  senses  of  touch  or  of  sight  can  be  obtained  ? 
Why  must  not  ether,  and  waves  in  ether  be  considered  as  pure 
conceptions,  as  only  our  human  conjectures  about  what  kind  of 
a  being,  if  it  existed  and  behaved  in  such  a  way,  might  well 
enough  explain  to  our  intellects  the  phenomena  witnessed  by  our 
senses  ?  Let  us,  then,  return  to  solid  ground  of  standing  ;  and 
is  not  such  ground  found  only  in  the  phenomena  themselves, 
the  facts  of  actual  sense-experience  ?  The  things  I  perceive 
are  the  realities  ;  the  conceptual  explanations  given  of  them 
by  the  man  of  science  are  only  appearances  —  made  credible 
for  the  time  being  by  the  conjectural  activities  of  some  human 
intellect.  The  actual  facts  remain,  for  all  time  and  all  per- 
sons, essentially  the  same  ;  but  who  knows  what  new  kijid  of 
an  entity,  with  novel  but  equally  conjectural  modes  of  behavior, 
may  some  day  be  substituted  for  this  nineteenth-century  demi- 
god —  the  so-called  "  ether  "  ? 

In  relief  from  such  see-sawing  between  the  actuality  of  each 
phenomenon,  which  is  debased  by  calling  it  mere  appearance, 
and  the  conceptually  correct  seeming  of  that  which  gets  its  only 
valid  claim  to  reality  by  usurping  the  title  from  the  phenome- 
non, the  reflective  thinking  of  man  may  be  driven  in  either  of 
two  directions.  One  of  these  is  the  path  of  complete  scep- 
ticism leading  to  agnosticism.  But  our  critical  theory  of 
knowledge  has  already  excluded  us  from  this  path ;  and  to 
pursue  it  anew  would  bring  us  to  no  tenable  theory  of  reality. 
The  other  path  seems  to  conduct  the  metaphysician  where 
phenomena  and  their  conceptual  explanations  must  both  alike 
be  considered  as  mere  appearances.  To  this  condition  of  un- 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  39 

trustworthy  seeming  all  known  things  and  all  their  scientific 
explanations  are  then  reduced.  But  over  against  them  — 
grand,  impressive,  yet  inscrutable  and  of  little  practical  signi- 
ficance —  stands  the  Unknown  Real,  the  unchanging  One  that 
is  the  foil  of  the  ceaseless  process  of  Becoming.  Reality  itself 
now  appears  (sic)  in  the  garb  of  an  abstraction,  —  an  empty 
apple  of  Sodom  which  is  offered  to  man  to  appease  his  cease- 
less hunger  for  an  object  of  knowledge  that  is  freed  from  the 
limitations  of  the  phenomenal. 

It  is  of  little  use  to  seek  further  light  on  the  distinction  be- 
tween "  appearance  "  and  "  reality,"  as  applied  to  external 
objects,  until  we  have  also  considered  how  a  similar  distinction 
arises  in  the  sphere  of  self-consciousness.  In  this  sphere,  too,  the 
growth  of  knowledge  forces  all  men  to  distinguish  between  the 
phenomenal  and  the  real ;  but  the  distinction  is  not  precisely 
the  same,  nor  is  it  made  on  the  same  grounds,  as  when  applied 
to  things.  Touching  the  actuality  of  every  phenomenon  when 
the  reference  implied  in  the  question  is  to  some  conscious  state 
of  its  own,  the  mind  is  never  in  any  doubt.  From  the  point  of 
view  held  by  this  reference,  phenomenon  means  nothing  less 
than  a  self-cognized  fact,  which  "  appears  "  at  all  only  on  the 
condition  that  it  is  an  actual  event  in  the  real  life  of  the  being 
whose  states  are  all  similarly  cognized  facts.  About  this 
form  of  a  distinction  also,  to  be  sure,  the  infant  does  not  con- 
cern itself.  For  it  there  is  no  possible  question  as  to  what 
merely  seems  to  be,  and  what  actually  is  its  own.  As  yet  no 
cognitions  of  Self  or  of  Things  have  taken  place.  But  let  the 
development  of  self-consciousness,  and  the  consequent  growth 
of  self-knowledge,  be  supposed  ;  and  even  then  the  self-con- 
scious states  cannot  be  divided  into  two  classes,  into  appear- 
ances and  realities,  as  the  distinction  indicated  by  these  words 
applies  to  things. 

The  conclusion  just  reached  needs  further  attention.  I  may 
doubt  whether  that  particular  tree  which  I  seem  to  see  over 
yonder  has  any  actual  (or  so-called  "  trans-subjective ") 


40  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

existence  ;  whether  what  it  is  —  color,  extension,  shape,  loca- 
tion in  space,  etc.  —  be  not  merely  as  my  object,  an  appearance 
to  me  of  that  which  is  not  itself  real.  The  tree  may  certainly 
be  considered  as  an  illusion,  an  hallucination,  a  phantom  of 
my  brain,  a  figment  of  my  imagination ;  or  it  may  for  the 
moment  be  regarded  as  a  phenomenal  real,  the  object  con- 
structed by  the  constitutive  activity  of  my  intellect,  function- 
ing after  the  forms  of  the  twelve  categories.  But  the  moment 
I  take  the  point  of  view  of  self-consciousness  toward  this 
object  of  mine  all  such  distinction  between  "  it  "  as  phenome- 
non and  the  same  "  it "  as  reality  becomes  impossible.  Seem- 
ing to  see  a  tree  and  really  seeing  a  tree  are,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  self -consciousness,  alike  actual  and  alike  phenome- 
nal. For  the  distinction  between  an  actual  tree  and  a  merely 
apparent  tree  is  one  which  carries  us  beyond  the  point  of 
view  assumed  by  the  observer  who  stands  in  the  stream  of 
his  own  consciousness.  My  object  tree  can  be  spoken  of  as 
"  mere  "  phenomenon  only  in  this  sense  ;  it  can  be  regarded 
as  so  completely  dependent  for  its  existence  and  its  continu- 
ance upon  me  as  a  knower  as  to  have  no  existence  in  the  form 
of  an  object  for  any  other  self,  and  no  influence  or  place  in  the 
world  of  external  things.  But  as  my  object,  it  is  no  more 
phenomenal  and  no  less  real  than  are  all  things  known  to  me. 
Every  object  and  every  state  is  as  really  my  object  and  as 
much  an  actual  event  in  my  stream  of  consciousness  as  is  any 
other. 

The  distinction  as  to  kind  of  state  arises  indeed,  in  self-con- 
sciousness. But  this,  too,  is  a  different  distinction  from  that 
between  the  phenomenal  and  the  actual  as  applied  to  things. 
I  may  mistake  my  hallucination  for  my  perception,  my  imag- 
ination for  my  memory,  my  involuntary  impulse  for  my  deed  of 
free  will.  I  may  be  deceived  as  to  the  character  of  my  motives, 
as  to  the  grounds  for  my  conclusions,  as  to  the  sanity  of  my 
hopes  and  aspirations.  But  all  these  actual  events  in  my  con- 
sciousness, when  regarded  in  respect  of  their  claims  to  existence 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  41 

as  expressive  of  the  reality  of  the  being  which  I  am, 
stand  on  the  same  level  of  fact.  The}7  may  all  be  regarded 
as  purely  mental  phenomena ;  but  they  are  all  also  parts  of 
the  reality  I  call  my  Self ;  because  they  are  all  actual  events, 
referable  alike  to  the  one  subject  of  them  all.  In  man's 
experience  with  things,  what  is  actual  to  one  sense  is  mere 
appearance  to  another  sense,  or  to  the  same  sense  under  other 
conditions ;  what  is  real  to  all  the  senses  is  properly  spoken  of 
as  mere  appearance  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  explanatory 
intellect ;  and  even  the  categories  themselves  —  those  very 
forms  of  the  objectivization  of  sensuous  impressions  without 
which  no  knowledge  of  concrete  realities  can  take  place  —  may 
be  treated  as  belonging  to  the  world  of  appearances  only.  So 
Kant  treated  them.  But  the  moment  we  enter  the  world 
of  self-contemplation  the  import  of  any  such  distinction  is 
changed.  We  reaffirm  that  all  mental  phenomena,  as  suchr 
are  equally  actual  psychical  events  ;  and  that  they  all  equally 
belong  to  that  reality  I  call  my  Self. 

But  further  reflection  soon  reveals  an  important  application 
of  the  distinction  between  the  phenomenal  and  the  actual 
which  undoubtedly  maintains  itself  in  the  sphere  of  self-con- 
sciousness also.  Indeed  it  is,  in  some  sort  only  on  the  basis 
of  this  distinction  that  self-knowledge  develops.  My  con- 
scious states  —  so  far  at  least  as  they  fall  under  the  Blick- 
punkt  of  self-consciousness  —  are  phenomena  to  me.  Every 
act  of  self-consciousness  means  this :  namely,  that  so  qualified, 
as  it  were,  do  I  actually  seem  to  myself  to  be.  Sometimes  it 
is  as  having  a  pain,  and  sometimes  as  having  a  pleasure ; 
sometimes  as  beholding  an  image  of  the  past,  and  sometimes  as 
taking  an  outlook  toward  the  future  ;  sometimes  as  forming  a 
plan  touching  my  daily  business,  and  sometimes  as  framing 
a  thought  about  some  invisible  and  spiritual  entity.  Each 
particular  state  passes  quickly  away  and  is  succeeded  by 
another.  And  so  I  speak  of  them  all  as  a  life  that  is  in  a 
constant  flux,  a  succession  of  psychoses,  a  flowing  stream  of 


42  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

conscious  states.  Many  of  them  I  have  forgotten;  and  of 
those  I  remember,  which  were  once  so  vivid  and  absorbing 
of  interest,  how  many  are  now  like  the  pale,  trooping  shadows 
of  a  more  than  half  forgotten  dream  !  Surely  my  very  being 
is  all,  when  taken  together,  and  it  is  in  each  and  every  one  of 
its  portions,  a  series  of  appearances  not  worthy  the  name  of  a 
being  truly  real. 

And  yet  my  very  ability  to  regard  each  and  all  of  these 
psychoses  as  phenomenal  is  dependent  upon  my  consciousness 
of  something  within  the  same  sphere  which  must  be  thrown 
into  a  marked  contrast  with  the  fleeting  states.  This  some- 
thing is  I,  —  my  Self,  as  the  saying  goes,  —  the  one  subject 
of  all  the  states.  These  self-conscious  states  are  both  real 
as  events,  and  are  appearances  as  well,  only  because  their 
very  nature  consists  in  their  being,  so  to  speak,  brought 
under  the  eye  of  the  Self,  and  appearing  to  it  as  its  own  states. 
Their  existence  lasts  only  so  long  as  their  appearance  lasts ; 
when  they  cease  to  be  in  evidence  before  the  subject  of  them 
all,  they  cease  really  to  be.  In  other  words,  the  reality  which 
the  conscious  states  have  is  not  different  from  their  actual 
appearance  as  events  in  the  stream  of  consciousness.  But  even 
the  lowest  form  of  a  genuine  self-consciousness  implies  some- 
thing more,  and  more  permanent,  which  is  characteristic  of 
every  one  of  these  self-conscious  states.  This  something  more 
is  the  being  which  is  the  subject  of  the  states.  What  further 
this  something  is,  and  in  what  sense  its  existence  is  real,  per- 
manent, and  universal,  as  belonging  to  all  the  phenomena,  it 
requires  a  scientific  study  of  self-knowledge  to  say.  It  is 
enough  for  our  present  purpose  to  call  this  something  the 
Ego,  the  Self,  or  the  common  subject  of  the  conscious  states. 

This,  then,  is  the  distinction  between  phenomenon  and  act- 
uality which  is  embodied  and  emphasized  in  every  act  of 
self-consciousness.  It  is  the  distinction  between  the  conscious 
process  or  state,  which  exists  only  as  it  appears  to  the  Self 
or  subject,  and  that  same  Self  regarded  as  the  subject  of 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  43 

all  the  conscious  processes  or  states.  They  are,  relative  to 
it,  appearances  or  phenomena ;  but  IT  is  the  one  permanently 
existing  and  real  subject  of  all  the  phenomena.  My  con- 
scious activities  or  states  are  mine ;  they  are  actual  events 
appearing  in  that  "  stream  of  consciousness  "  I  call  my  life  ; 
but  I  am  the  real  being  whose  activities  or  states  they  are  ; 
and  to  whom  —  speaking  in  a  permissible  and  pregnant  figure 
of  speech  —  they  all  appear.  And  to  no  other  being  do  they 
appear ;  to  all  other  selves,  if  my  conscious  states  are 
made  known  at  all,  it  is  through  certain  physical  signs  which 
appear  to  these  other  selves  as  phenomena  of  external  things. 

A  study  of  the  psychological  origin  of  this  group  of  philo- 
sophical conceptions  reveals,  then,  this  important  truth :  In 
the  sphere  of  self-consciousness  the  distinction  between  reality 
and  appearance  is  valid  only  as  a  distinction  between  the  Self 
and  its  conscious  states. 

Further  exposition  of  the  psychological  origin  of  this  dis- 
tinction between  the  phenomenal  and  the  actual,  both  as 
respects  things  and  as  respects  the  self,  does  not  concern  us 
now.  How  it  comes  about  that  the  total  content  of  every 
portion  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  which  gets  conscious 
recognition  divides  itself  into  state  or  process  and  subject  of 
state  or  process,  is  a  problem  in  introspective  and  speculative 
psychology.  What  that  can  be  justified  by  an  appeal  to  experi- 
ence is  meant  by  speaking  of  the  self  as  a  real  and  permanent 
being,  which  stands  in  such  relation  to  its  own  individual  ex- 
periences as  forbids  its  being  identified  with  any  one  of  these 
experiences,  and  as  requires  that  it  should  be  regarded  as  in 
some  sort  the  possessor  of  them  all,  —  this  belongs  to  the 
metaphysics  of  mind  to  discuss.  What  has  already  been 
shown  is  sufficient  for  our  present  purpose.  The  conclusion 
may  be  summed  up  as  follows  :  In  its  application  to  things  the 
distinction  between  the  phenomenal  and  the  real  is  fleeting, 
evanescent,  elusive ;  but  in  its  application  to  the  self  the 
meaning  and  limits  of  the  distinction  are  perfectly  clear. 


44  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

The  conclusion  which  has  just  been  reached  from  the  point 
of  view  of  psychological  analysis  is  amply  enforced  by  a 
survey  of  the  history  of  philosophy.  In  the  metaphysics  of 
nature,  and  as  to  the  valid  conclusions  of  reflective  thinking 
about  the  essential  being  of  things,  the  line  of  cleavage  be- 
tween the  phenomenal  and  the  real  has  been  variously  drawn 
by  different  philosophers.  With  some,  as  with  Parmenides 
of  old,  the  world  of  sensuous  changes  is  throughout  mere 
seeming ;  the  unchanging  One  is  the  alone  real.  With  others, 
as  with  Heraclitus  of  old,  the  changes  themselves,  the  sen- 
suously known  processes  of  Becoming,  are  the  only  actual ; 
the  conceptually  fixed  and  unchanging  has  no  real  existence ; 
it  is  the  mere  construct  of  the  human  mind.  For  one  school 
of  thinkers,  only  the  object  of  reason,  the  Idea,  is  entitled  to- 
be  called  actuality;  for  another,  only  the  objects  of  sense. 
All  students  of  the  great  master  of  criticism  know  how  pre- 
eminently unsatisfying  is  the  answer  which  Kant  gives  to 
any  attempt  consistently  to  fix  the  meaning  of  this  distinction, 
so  fundamental  to  his  entire  system  of  thinking.  In  the 
Transcendental  ^Esthetics  the  real  is  admitted  into  our  sen- 
suous experience  as  the  unknown  cause  of  our  having  sensa- 
tions at  all ;  in  the  Transcendental  Logic  all  the  most  assured 
and  scientific  knowledge  of  real  things  is  reduced  to  the 
object-making  activity  of  our  understanding  and  so  to  the 
phenomenally  real ;  in  the  Transcendental  Dialectic  the  highest 
ideas  of  reason  are  convicted  of  being  nothing  but  a  Logik  des 
Scheins.  In  many  places  in  the  Kantian  writings,  the  very 
thought  of  trans-subjective  existence  seems  to  be  accused  of  in- 
herent falsity ;  Ding-an-Sich  is  a  purely  negative  and  limit- 
ing conception,  like  the  side  of  the  pond  against  which  the 
blind  fish  strikes.  And  yet  everywhere,  in  all  three  Critiques, 
the  author  introduces  glimpses  of  a  Reality  that  is  underneath 
and  behind  all  concrete  and  phenomenal  realities.  We  may 
not  know  what  this  Ding-an-Sich  is ;  but  Kant  himself  is- 
sure —  at  least  in  a  practical  and  aesthetical  way  —  and  he  is- 


PHENOMENON  AND   ACTUALITY  45 

interested  in  revealing  it  to  the  man  of  faith.  And  finally 
we  are  plainly  told  that  we  cannot  be  rational  unless  we 
supply  an  "  intelligible  substrate  "  for  nature,  both  external 
and  internal.1 

It  is  this  inability  to  avoid  the  conviction  that  nature  as 
man  knows  it,  is  the  manifestation  of  a  transcendental  reality, 
coupled  with  the  inability  to  define  the  latter  or  to  fix  clear 
limits  to  the  distinction  involved  in  this  way  of  looking  at 
nature,  which  offers  one  of  its  most  interesting  problems  to 
every  metaphysical  system.  It  is  the  same  inability  which 
constitutes  the  pathos  of  the  figurative  and  poetical  ways  of 
applying  to  the  external  world  the  very  conceptions  of  phe- 
nomenon and  actuality.  But  it  is  the  conviction  that  this 
world  of  appearances  is,  in  this  regard,  of  our  own  kindred, 
which  gives  to  such  expressions  the  charm  and  the  sublimity 
they  certainly  possess.  "  Perhaps  nothing  more  sublime  was 
ever  said,"  remarks  in  a  foot-note  the  author  of  the  Critique 
of  Judgment,  "  and  no  sublimer  thought  ever  expressed  than 
the  famous  inscription  on  the  temple  of  Isis  (Mother  Nature) : 
'  I  am  all  that  is,  and  that  was,  and  that  shall  be,  and  no 
mortal  hath  lifted  my  veil/  >:  And  the  same  note  tells  us 
how  a  Professor  of  Natural  Philosophy  at  Gottingen  (Segner, 
1704-1777)  "  availed  himself  of  this  idea  in  a  suggestive 
vignette "  in  order  to  inspire  his  pupils  with  a  "  holy  awe." 
Who  does  not  recognize,  with  sesthetical  emotion,  the  truth- 
fulness of  Goethe's  series  of  exclamations  with  their  following 
inquiry  ?  — 

"  How  all  one  whole  harmonious  weaves, 
Each  in  the  other  works  and  lives ! 

Majestic  show  !  but  ah  !  a  show  alone  ! 

Nature  !  where  find  I  thee,  immense,  unknown  ?  " 

For  the  solution  of  this  problem  offered  by  the  distinction 
between  phenomenon  and  actuality,  in  a  preliminary  way  and 

1  Consider  the  course  of  the  argument  in  solution  of  the  "antinomy  of 
Taste,"  "  Kritik  d.  Urtheilskraft,"  L,  ii.,  §§  57  ff. 


46  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

so  far  as  the  distinction  offers  an  obstacle  to  all  attempts  at 
a  positive  and  yet  speculative  treatment  of  the  whole  field  of 
external  reality,  two  critical  considerations  are  sufficient. 
These  concern  the  nature  and  the  validity  of  this  distinction 
when  it  is  regarded  from  the  metaphysician's  point  of  view. 
This  point  of  view  is  certainly  an  advance  upon  that  from  which 
we  have  already  surveyed  the  psychological  genesis  and  appli- 
cation, both  to  Things  and  to  Self,  of  the  same  distinction. 
This  advanced  point  of  view  must,  however,  remain  faithful  to 
the  facts  brought  before  it  by  psychological  analysis.  Onto- 
logical  doctrine,  so  far  as  it  is  dependent  in  any  way  upon  this 
distinction,  requires  some  work  of  reflective  thinking  which 
goes  beyond  psychology  ;  but  it  cannot  contradict  or  neglect 
the  data  of  psychology.  On  the  contrary,  it  must  build  upon 
these  facts  as  its  own  secure  foundation.1 

As  to  the  nature  of  the  distinction  between  phenomenon  and 
actuality,  so  far  as  this  distinction  affects  the  problems  and 
the  method  of  metaphysical  system,  the  following  critical  con- 
sideration is  chiefly  important.  The  two  terms  of  the  distinc- 
tion are  always  correlative,  mutually  related,  reciprocally 
dependent  for  their  significance  and  for  their  application  to 
every  class  of  cognitions.  A  phenomenon  that  is  not  of  and 
to  some  real  being  is  inconceivable.  A  reality  that  is  not 
phenomenon  to  itself,  or  to  some  other  being^  is  unthinkable. 
Both  "  the  apparent "  and  "  the  real "  represent  merely  negative 
conceptions,  so  long  as  we  try  to  state  them  in  terms  which 
do  not  involve  each  the  other ;  as  positive  conceptions,  filled 
in  with  a  wealth  of  meaning  derived  from  actual  concrete  ex- 
periences, they  necessarily  implicate  each  other.  Meaning 

1  It  seems  strange,  indeed,  to  the  thoughtful  student  of  history  that,  while  the 
distinction  of  "  Appearance  "  and  "  Reality  "  is  so  old  and  so  universal,  the  grounds, 
nature,  and  validity  of  the  distinction  itself  have  received  little  attention.  Sys- 
tems of  philosophy  have  been  built  up  in  the  effort  to  justify  it ;  or  they  have 
divided  on  fundamental  doctrines  according  to  that  single  conception  of  this  couple 
upon  which  the  emphasis  was  laid.  The  distinction  has  given  the  title  to  meta- 
physical treatises,  both  ancient  and  modern.  It  has  itself  received  comparatively 
little  critical  treatment. 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  47 

can  be  given  to  neither  of  these  conceptions,  without  involv- 
ing the  meaning  which  one  finds  one's  self  forced  to  give  to 
the  other  of  the  two. 

It  follows,  then,  that  the  phenomenal  and  the  actual,  or 
the  world  of  appearance  and  the  world  of  reality,  cannot 
be  distinguished  as  though  they  were  mutually  exclusive 
spheres.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  phenomena  of  the 
entire  mental  life,  regarded  from  the  psychologist's  point  of 
view,  are  all  alike  actual  events  in  the  one  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, —  all  referable,  as  processes  or  states,  to  the  one 
real  subject  of  them  all.  I  am  not  to  be  set  over  against  my 
own  conscious  processes,  as  they  appear  to  me,  and  thus  made 
more  truly  real  by  being  separated  from  them.  And  strictly 
speaking,  the  same  statement  is  true  of  all  objective  and  phys- 
ical phenomena  as  related  to  that  world  of  reality  which  is 
recognized  as  "  not-ourselves."  Apparent  things  and  real 
things  do  not  belong  to  two  mutually  exclusive  kinds,  or 
spheres,  of  being.  In  the  realm  of  so-called  Nature,  too, 
the  appearances  are  not  something  that  can  be  drawn  off  and 
wholly  separated  from  the  reality;  and  that  which  is  real 
cannot  be  construed  as  an  unknown  Ding-an-sich  that  never 
to  any  one,  nor  in  any  manner,  makes  itself  apparent.  Or, 
to  follow  up  the  figurative  and  poetic  way  of  expressing  the 
truth,  let  us  say  :  When  men  bow  their  heads  at  the  temple  of 
Isis  and  hear  their  "  Mother  Nature "  declare,  "  I  am  all 
that  is,  and  that  was,  and  that  shall  be,"  so  far  as  they 
know  anything  "  that  is,  or  was,  or  shall  be,"  so  far  has  Nature 
herself,  with  her  own  hand,  already  lifted  her  veil. 

This  general  truth  may  be  enforced  and  made  clearer  by 
recurring  for  a  moment  to  the  epistemological  point  of  view. 
The  distinction  between  the  phenomenal  and  the  actual  is,  of 
course,  a  distinction  which  emerges  in  the  development  of 
knowledge.  It  is  a  distinction  which  applies  only  to  objects 
of  knowledge,  —  whether  to  the  self  or  to  things  that  really 
are  not-the-self.  But  let  it  be  considered  from  the 


48  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

point  of  view,  and  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  distinction 
clearly  found  to  be  ?  Phenomenon  and  appearance, 
and  all  similar  terms,  mean  that  every  object  of  knowledge 
may,  nay  must,  be  considered  as  somebody's  object  known. 
"Phenomenon"  is  any  particular  object  of  knowledge,  re- 
garded as  "  showing"  itself  in  the  stream  of  consciousness  to 
the  being,  the  total  manifestation  of  whose  own  existence  is 
this  stream.  "  Appearance "  is  any  particular  object  which 
"  presents  "  itself  to  the  Self,  before  whom  all  objects  pre- 
sent themselves  for  cognition,  for  recognition,  and  for  reflec- 
tive treatment  by  the  higher  forms  of  thought.  Without  the 
assumed  presence  of  this  real  being,  this  conscious  self, 
neither  showing  nor  appearing  can  be  conceived  of  as  taking 
place.  Nor  can  it  properly  be  said  that  such  an  exposition  of 
the  significance  of  knowledge  is  merely  figurative ;  and  that  to 
be  satisfied  with  it  is  to  allow  one's  self  to  be  deluded  by 
attractive  figures  of  speech.  The  rather  are  we  dealing  here 
with  that  actual  and  indubitable  experience  which  itself  re- 
quires and  admits  of  no  figurative  explanation  or  elucidation; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  this  experience  itself  which  is  the 
source  and  the  type  of  all  similar  figures  of  speech.  Phenom- 
enon and  reality  are  words  which  refer  to  this  experience. 
Every  manner  of  shining  and  of  seeming  takes  itself  back,  for 
all  the  meaning  which  it  can  claim  for  human  thought,  to 
the  same  fundamental  facts  of  cognition.  Phenomenon  and 
reality  are  words  totally  without  significance,  unless  they  are 
understood  as  descriptive  of  the  terms  on  which  all  human 
knowledge  takes  place.  Nothing  is  known,  or  can  be  con- 
ceived of  as  becoming  known*  except  as  it  appears  in  con- 
sciousness to  some  real  knower.  Or, —  to  change  somewhat 
the  customary  meaning  of  the  word,  —  There  is  no  phenom- 
enon which  is  not  made  to  be  "  phenomenon "  ly  relation  to 
the  cognitive  processes  of  a  "  noumenal "  Self.  Every  phenom- 
enon is  to  some  mind ;  every  appearance  is  unto  some  real, 
-cognitive  being. 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  49 

From  the  more  metaphysical  point  of  view  (although  this 
also  is  an  assumption  without  which  knowledge  itself  is 
impossible)  we  are  equally  compelled  to  say  that  every 
appearance  is  of  some  real  being  —  Self  or  Thing.  Other- 
wise our  very  words  are  devoid  of  meaning  when  considered 
from  this  point  of  view.  For  every  particular  phenomenon 
some  kind  of  correlated  activity,  which  may  be  spoken  about 
as  the  manifestation  of  some  particular  agent  or  active  being, 
must  be  assumed.  And  just  as  no  appearance  terminates  in 
mid-air,  or  in  a  void,  so  no  appearance  arises  from  mid-air  or 
from  a  void.  Phenomena  do  not  issue  from  the  womb  of 
non-reality.  Every  shining  is  of  some  sun,  as  surely  as  it  is 
into  some  eye ;  if  the  total  experience  is  the  perception  of 
light.  In  other  words,  manifestations  are  of  realities,  to 
cognizing  selves. 

Neither  can  the  significance  of  that  experience  of  mankind 
in  which  originates  the  distinction  of  appearance  and  reality 
be  diminished  by  reminding  ourselves  that  both  physical  and 
psychical  phenomena  belong  to  the  consciousness  of  the 
lower  animals.  Nor  do  we  succeed  better  when  we  consider 
ourselves  and  one  another  as  "  but  a  moving-row  of  shadow- 
shapes."  The  admission  of  a  merely  animal  conscious- 
ness, or  of  a  human  consciousness  that  is  merely  sensuous 
and  dream-like,  does  not  make  the  distinction  itself,  when- 
ever it  emerges  in  consciousness,  any  less  important.  This 
is,  however,  not  the  question  now  under  discussion.  For  our 
present  inquiry  does  not  concern  the  genesis  of  the  distinc- 
tion at  any  precise  point  of  time,  or  in  any  grade  of  men- 
tal development.  Our  present  inquiry  concerns  the  nature 
and  validity  of  the  contrast  involved  in  the  distinction,  partic- 
ularly as  applied  to  external  things.  Our  present  contention 
in  answer  to  the  inquiry  is  this :  the  distinction  between  the 
phenomenal  and  the  actual  is  without  meaning  unless  both 
terms  of  the  distinction  be  considered  as  involved  in  every 
cognitive  experience.  Every  such  experience  is  a  manifes- 

4 


50  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

tation  of  reality  to  a  reality.  The  reality  to  which  the 
manifestation  is  made  is  always,  necessarily,  the  knower, 
the  cognizing  self.  And  such  manifestation  the  knower 
always  receives  —  these  are  the  very  terms  on  which  knowl- 
edge is  possible  —  as  coming  to  him  from  some  reality. 

This  trans-subjective  reference  of  all  knowledge,  this  impli- 
cate of  actual  being  which  is  an  inseparable  moment  of  the 
cognitive  state,  we  have  elsewhere  discussed,  in  a  critical 
manner  and  at  great  length.  The  truth  is  referred  to  in  this 
connection  in  order  to  emphasize  the  correlate  truth : 
Appearance  and  Reality  are  never,  even  in  thought,  so  to 
be  separated  or  contrasted  as  that  each  does  not  involve  the 
other.  No  appearance  arises  in  human  cognitive  conscious- 
ness without  reality  implicate ;  no  reality  is  cognized  other- 
wise than  in  terms  of  its  appearance.  For  actuality  does 
not  withdraw  when  the  phenomenon  occurs  ;  nor  can  the 
phenomenon  occur  otherwise  than  as  the  announcer  of  the 
presence  of  reality.  And  to  throw  the  two  into  such  a  con- 
trast as  renders  their  spheres  mutually  exclusive  is  not  only 
to  render  them  both  unmeaning ;  it  is  also  to  misinterpret 
the  most  fundamental  data  of  human  cognitive  experience. 

An  analysis  of  any  individual  thing  known,  whether  in 
terms  of  the  plain  man's  consciousness  or  of  the  more 
elaborate  cognitions  of  science,  enforces  the  conclusion  so 
important  for  systematic  metaphysics :  phenomenon  and  ac- 
tuality must  be  regarded  as  inseparable  correlates  rather  than 
as  mutually  exclusive  spheres.  It  is  a  trite  saying  and  one 
about  which  psychology  and  metaphysics  have  wrangled 
much :  "  Things "  are  always  known  as  real  beings  that 
possess  qualities  and  achieve  results.  To  constitute  a 
"  Thing "  the  phenomena  must  be  supplied  with  a  "  that- 
which  "  —  a  kind  of  point  of  issue  and  of  termination  for 
those  events  which  are  considered  as  answering  our  ques- 
tioning after  "  what,"  and  "  why,"  and  "  what-for."  Every 
one  knows  what  it  is  to  be  deceived  and  led  into  error  in  his 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  51 

search  for  an  answer  to  this  questioning.  Every  one  can  be 
made  to  stare  at  finding  his  cherished  "  core  of  reality " 
vanishing  into  nothingness,  if  he  responds  to  the  invitation 
to  strip  "  the  Thing "  of  all  those  qualifications  which  give 
to  him  its  "  what,"  and  its  "  why,"  and  its  "  what-for."  But 
every  one,  no  matter  how  often  thus  deceived  and  astonished, 
continues  virtually  to  make,  and  to  enforce  upon  himself, 
this  same  distinction  as  belonging  of  necessity  to  the  real 
existence  of  every  object.  If  we  may  be  pardoned  so  un- 
couth yet  convenient  a  word,  the  "  Thing-hood  "  of  everything 
involves,  in  a  kind  of  necessary  unity,  both  phenomena  and 
actuality.  This  "  Thing-hood  "  is  the  almost  infinitely  com- 
plex appearance  of  some  real  being.  It  can  never  be  either 
mere  appearance  or  pure  unmanifested  reality. 

None  of  the  wonderful  discoveries  of  modern  science,  with 
its  improved  instrumentation  which  reveals  to  sense  the  ex- 
ceedingly small  and  the  very  remote,  and  which  makes 
apparent  to  imagination  hitherto  undreamed-of  relations 
and  activities  that  lie  beyond  the  reach  of  sense,  alter  this 
truth  in  any  respect.  These  new  forms  of  appearance  are  of 
the  same  actuality.  The  answers  to  the  inquiry,  What  is 
the  nature  of  this  actuality  ?  are  indeed  made  indefinitely 
more  numerous  by  these  improved  methods  of  observation. 
Each  modern  science  has  its  rapidly  extending  list  of  answers 
to  the  demand  for  qualifications  that  will  actually  apply  to 
every  meanest  thing.  And  the  wonder  of  it  all  is  that  we 
never  find  ourselves  able  to  explicate  the  whole  of  the  qual- 
ities of  any  form  of  real  being.  We  are  constantly  discov- 
ering that  each  thing  is  really  some  "  what "  more  than  we 
had  hitherto  known  it  to  be.  The  answers  to  the  inquiry, 
Why  does  this  particular  thing  behave  thus  and  so  ?  by  no 
means  keep  pace  with  the  discoveries  that  define  its  circle 
of  qualities  in  answer  to  the  question,  What  ?  Yet  modern 
science  is  constantly  making  its  answers  to  the  search  after 
explanatory  causes  more  numerous  and  more  precise.  Nor 


52  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

is  it  wholly  barren  of  fruit  that  satisfies  the  appetite  to  know 
the  teleology  of  particular  things ;  although  science  does  not 
consider  its  duty  to  lie  chiefly  in  the  effort  to  answer  the 
question,  What  for  ? 

In  all  the  growth  of  modern  science,  however,  reflective 
thinking  as  to  the  hidden  qualities  and  hitherto  unnoticed 
causes  of  external  things  is  based  upon  observation.  This  is 
of  the  very  essence  of  science.  But  observation  necessarily 
keeps  the  phenomena  as  experienced,  and  the  actuality  as  sci- 
entifically defined,  in  constant  living  intercourse.  Every  cor- 
rection of  an  error  or  of  a  partial  statement  is  a  fresh  appeal 
to  the  indissoluble  character  of  this  connection.  For  science 
such  correction  never  means  the  more  extended  separation  of 
the  apparent  and  the  real ;  nor  does  it  mean  the  confession 
that  what  is  now  known  to  have  been  only  apparent  was  not 
also  an  appearance  of  the  real.  Science  that  is  true  to  its 
name  and  to  its  duty  can  never  commit  the  almost  stupid 
blunder  of  a  metaphysics  which  thinks  to  get  at  reality  by 
some  tour  de  force  of  "  pure"  thinking  separated  from  a  basis 
of  actual  commerce  with  observed  facts.  And  observed  facts 
are,  of  course,  phenomena. 

To  expound  further  the  distinction  between  phenomenon 
and  actuality  as  applied  to  things,  and  to  show  the  signifi- 
cance and  value  of  the  distinction  in  the  current  conceptions 
of  particular  beings,  their  qualities,  their  processes  of  becoming 
and  change,  their  relations,  etc.,  is  an  important  part  of  the 
body  of  any  theory  of  reality.  What  is  meant  that  is  impor- 
tant for  the  shaping  of  a  metaphysical  system  by  such  distinc- 
tions as  that  between  "  apparent  motion  "  and  "  real  motion," 
"  apparent  change  "  and  "  real  change,"  etc.,  can  be  consid- 
ered in  its  proper  place.  But  no  attempt  at  metaphysical 
system  can  be  conducted  properly  without  abandoning  from 
the  beginning  the  unmeaning  and  even  absurd  contrast  of 
appearance  and  reality,  as  though  they  were  mutually  ex- 
clusive, or  contradictory,  conceptions.  The  introduction  of 


PHENOMENON   AND   ACTUALITY  53 

this  contrast  necessarily  results  in  a  perpetual  vacillation 
between  two  mutually  exclusive  and  contradictory  metaphysi- 
cal positions.  By  emphasizing  the  phenomenal,  it  leads  to 
the  conclusion  that  all  actual  human  knowledge  is  illusory, 
hopelessly  confined  to  the  realm  of  mere  appearances.  Such 
a  doctrine  of  Maya  recommends  suicide  for  the  metaphysician, 
as  a  coup  de  gr&ce  inflicted  at  the  very  beginning  of  what 
might,  if  he  would  only  stay  his  hand,  turn  out  a  really  bril- 
liant career.  But  compelled  to  emphasize  in  turn  the  actual, 
this  doctrine  finds  satisfaction  in  positing  the  conception  of  a 
mere  Being,  a  Unity  undefined  and  unknowable,  a  Ding-an- 
Sich,  hopelessly  remote  from  all  concrete  and  verifiable 
experiences.  And  thus,  indeed,  the  metaphysician  saves  his 
own  life,  —  only  to  find  that  in  the  estimate  of  his  fellow-men 
and  of  himself,  when  the  ethical  and  religious  needs  of  life 
are  pressing,  he  might  quite  as  well  have  lost  it. 

Inasmuch,  then,  as  metaphysics,  like  every  other  methodical 
and  well-founded  search  for  the  extension  of  knowledge, 
bases  itself  on  cognitive  experience,  we  accept  the  distinction 
between  phenomenon  and  actuality.  It  is  a  distinction  em- 
bodied in  the  essential  nature  of  every  cognition.  It  is  a 
distinction  which  characterizes  the  essence  of  the  "  Thing- 
hood  "  of  each  particular  thing.  But  it  is  a  distinction,  or,  if 
you  please,  a  contrast,  in  which  the  two  terms  involve  each 
other.  The  true  and  all-inclusive  reality  must  embrace  them 
both.  And  what  is  true  of  each  particular  object  of  knowl- 
edge is  true  also  of  the  world  of  objects.  He  who  follows  one 
set  of  conclusions  so  far  as  to  pronounce,  with  the  ancient 
philosophy  of  the  Orient,  all  things  to  be  illusory,  to  be  Maya 
indeed,  must  also  adopt  the  statement  with  which  this  phi- 
losophy itself  supplemented  so  startling  a  conclusion.  And 
then  he  shall  say  with  it,  as  he  stands  in  the  presence  of  every 
particular  and  concrete  real  thing :  "  That,  too,  art  thou." 

The  other  preliminary  conclusion  with  which  we  are  to 
meet  on  the  threshold  the  distinction  between  phenomenon  and 


54  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

actuality  is  no  less  important.  It  can,  however,  only  receive  a 
simple  statement  at  this  point  in  our  discussion.  Its  expan- 
sion, exposition,  and  defence  is  a  sort  of  central  thesis  in  the 
entire  theory  of  reality.  In  a  preliminary  way  the  conclusion 
may  be  stated  as  follows  :  The  distinction  of  phenomenon  and 
actuality  as  applied  to  things  in  particular,  and  to  the  entire 
world  of  external  objects,  has  its  meaning  and  its  validity  upon 
the  assumption  that  it  is  made  after  the  analogy  of  the  same 
distinction  as  applied  to  ourselves.  Things  are  real  subjects  of 
those  changing  states,  which  become  phenomena  to  us,  in 
somewhat  the  same  way  as  that  in  which  each  Self  is  known 
to  be  the  subject  of  its  own  states.  This  phrase,  "  in  some- 
what the  same  way,"  is  designedly  made  vague ;  its  further 
definition  is  an  important  part  of  the  problems  of  systematic 
metaphysics.  The  clear  and  satisfactory  definition  of  this, 
and  every  similar  phrase,  may  be  quite  impossible.  The  dis- 
cussion of  its  meaning  may  often  seem  to  end  in  the  shadows 
of  conceptions  that  are  inchoate,  or  even  in  a  sort  of  dark 
chaos  of  stirring  emotions.  But  everywhere  we  shall  find 
ourselves  obliged  to  return  upon  the  position  from  which  the 
critical  analysis  of  the  distinction  between  phenomenon  and 
actuality  sends  us  forth.  For  all  things,  too,  whether  as 
experienced  in  particular  or  conceived  of  as  together  consti- 
tuting a  system,  Reality  is  known  as  a  being  that  is,  after  the 
analogy  of  the  Self,  the  subject  of  changing  states.  For 
things  in  particular,  and  for  the  Cosmos  in  the  large,  pheno- 
menon and  actuality  are. distinguished  and  contrasted  only  as 
they  are  conceived  of  in  terms  of  the  Self  and  of  its  various 
"moments" — not  divided  in  thought  or  in  reality;  but 
united  in  each  and  every  reality  because  both  are  given  in 
that  cognitive  experience  which  furnishes  the  problems  of 
metaphysics  to  thought. 

If  we  were  to  undertake  at  this  point  a  thorough  criticism 
of  the  proposition  just  made,  we  should  only  take  time  which 
is  needed  for  the  same  work  in  other  connections.  A  few 


PHENOMENON  AND  ACTUALITY  55 

words  of  general  exposition  must  suffice.  We  have  seen  that 
the  distinction  of  phenomenon  and  actuality  is  itself  realized 
in  every  act  of  self-knowledge.  In  every  such  act  I  appear  to 
myself  —  the  phenomenon  of  a  really  existent  self  to  itself. 
In  every  act  of  perception  by  the  senses,  however,  that  appears 
to  me  —  to  the  same  self  —  which  is  not  a  phenomenon  of  me, 
but  of  some  other  really  existent  thing. 

But  now  suppose  that  this  "  thing-like "  appearance  is 
detected  in  actually  being  not  what  it  seems  to  be  ;  and  I  then 
call  it  a  mere  appearance,  or  —  more  technically  —  an  illusion 
or  an  hallucination.  It  is  now  a  thing  which  has  somehow 
cheated  me  into  recognizing  it  as  the  phenomenon  of  the 
wrong  subject.  What  must  I  do  in  order  to  maintain  that 
sanity  of  intellect  which  knowledge  presupposes?  Nothing 
more  than  change  the  point  of  attachment  from  whfch  the 
phenomenon  proceeds,  the  being  of  which  my  conscious  state  is 
made  a  phenomenon.  This  I  may  do  in  either  one  of  several 
ways.  I  may  attribute  the  phenomenon  to  another  and  differ- 
ent kind  of  subject  from  that  whose  appearance  to  me  I 
originally  thought  it  was.  It  seemed  a  ghost ;  but  it  really  is 
the  moonlight  reflected  from  the  folds  of  the  curtain.  It 
seemed  an  ordinary  man,  but  it  really  is  a  materialization  of 
a  friend's  departed  spirit.  It  seemed  a  solid  form,  or  a  ship 
upon  the  horizon ;  but  it  really  is  an  upright  streak  of  floating 
mist,  or  a  mirage.  Or  again,  I  may  take  the  unconsciously 
or  the  scientifically  psycho-physical  point  of  view.  Then  the 
subject  of  the  phenomenon  is  my  bodily  self ;  and  the  phenom- 
enon is  an  appearance  to  me  of  some  organ  or  condition  of 
this  bodily  self.  It  is  a  defect  in  my  vision,  a  figment  of  my 
brain,  a  disorder  of  my  internal  organism.  But  in  this  case, 
since  the  phenomenon  is  not  familiar  to  me  as  the  phase  or 
condition  of  a  thing,  I  must  put  in  between  it  and  its  real 
subject  some  intermediate  link.  And  this  link,  too,  must  be 
a  phenomenon  which  would  appear  to  me,  or  to  some  other 
mind,  as  of  the  brain,  or  the  liver,  or  spinal  cord,  if  only  we 


56  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

could  get  into  the  proper  relations  to  the  actual  thing-like 
subject.  Or,  finally,  I  may  take  the  wholly  subjective  point 
of  view  again  ;  I  may  turn,  on  grounds  of  practice  or  of  theory, 
to  the  solipsistic  position.  And  then  the  phenomenon  which 
is  an  appearance  to  me  is  also  an  appearance  of  me ;  it  is 
simply  my  conscious  state,  which  I  have  somehow  mistaken 
for  the  state  of  some  being  other  than  myself. 

But  to  whatever  point  of  attachment  in  reality  the  phe- 
nomenon is  linked  by  our  perception  or  by  our  thought,  the 
nature  of  the  distinction  implied  remains  essentially  the  same. 
The  ways  of  making  the  distinction  change  ;  the  nature  of 
the  distinction  itself  is  unchanged.  From  the  epistemological 
point  of  view,  phenomenon  and  actuality  mean,  when  applied 
to  things,  a  distinction  between  a  being  that  is  somehow  the 
permanent  real  subject  of  its  changing  states  and  these  chang- 
ing states  themselves.  The  contrast  and  the  unifying  which 
are  both  involved  in  the  distinction  belong  to  the  essential 
nature  of  all  cognitive  activity.  And  if  knowledge  is  valid  for 
things,  and  this  distinction  really  applies  to  things,  then  the 
words  "phenomenon"  and  "actuality  "  as  applied  to  the  ex- 
ternal world  signify  the  same  fundamental  truth.  The  contrast 
and  the  unifying  are  both  valid  in  the  distinction  as  applied  to 
this  external  world.  This  world  is  known,  and  is  known  in  a 
trustworthy  way,  by  a  projection  of  the  same  distinction  made 
after  the  analogy  of  our  cognitive  experience  with  the  self. 

How  fruitful  this  thought,  with  the  assumptions  it  involves, 
becomes  for  our  understanding  of  the  essential  nature  of 
things,  and  indeed  for  the  perfection  of  any  attempt  at  a 
systematic  metaphysics,  its  future  development  must  be  left 
to  show.  But  having  passed  the  threshold  we  may  now  bring 
ourselves  face  to  face  with  that  conception  in  which  all  the 
problems  of  metaphysics  lie  clearly  or  obscurely  involved. 
This  conception  is  one  which  thoughtful  men  frame  carefully 
and  hold  before  their  imagination  with  open  or  suppressed 
emotion.  It  is  expressed  by  the  one  word  reality. 


CHAPTER  III 

ANALYSIS    OF  THE    CONCEPTION    OF  REALITY 

WHAT  is  it  that  gives  to  the  word  "  Reality  "  the  feeling-full 
significance  with  which  men  so  frequently  employ  it  ?  That 
this  term,  and  all  other  terms  which  convey  meanings  similar 
to  it,  have  an  uncommon  power  over  the  mind,  he  cannot  doubt 
who  has  observed  the  language  and  conduct  of  men.  The 
explanation  which  answers,  partially  at  least,  the  question  just 
raised  would  have  to  notice  the  following  three  classes  of  par- 
ticulars. The  search  after  what  we  feel  ourselves  entitled  to 
call  actual,  and  our  debate  about  the  actuality  of  any  partic- 
ular being,  event,  or  relation,  is  often  a  matter  chiefly  of 
scientific  and  speculative  interest.  It  is  a  search  and  a  debate 
which  are  forced  upon  the  mind  in  all  its  keen  pursuit  of  knowl- 
edge for  its  own  sake.  For  the  terms  employed  by  the  knower 
are  meaningless  unless  they  are  understood  as  having  an  onto- 
logical  reference,  an  implicate  of,  or  a  hint  toward  the  trans- 
cendent. The  truth  is  that  the  mind  never  affirms  knowledge 
—  whether  the  object  of  the  cognitive  activity  be  a  fact,  a 
relation,  a  law,  or  what-not  —  until  it  feels  that  it  has  some- 
how obtained  a  grasp  upon  the  transcendent.  It  is  not  con- 
ceivable, therefore,  that  any  being  which  desires  knowledge, 
as  men  are  obliged  to  understand  this  term,  should  be  other- 
wise than  interested,  in  a  somewhat  emotional  way,  in  all  that 
is  conveyed  to  thought  by  the  word  reality. 

In  this  connection  it  may  be  noted  that  men  feel  a  sort  of 
insult  offered,  and  wrong  done,  to  the  cognitive  faculties  when 
they  arc  accused,  in  particular  instances,  of  inability  to  lay  a 


£8  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

grasp  upon  reality.  The  modern  dilettante  agnostic,  indeed, 
within  his  scholastic  retreat  or  in  the  confidences  of  his  club, 
debates  with  indifference  the  question  whether  all  human 
knowledge  be  not  illusory.  He  is  perhaps  moved  to  indigna- 
tion by  his  opponent's  claim  to  know  anything  about  ultimate 
ontological  verities  —  especially  of  the  ethical  and  religious 
order.  His  antagonism  is  perfervid  ;  but  fervent  faith  or  pre- 
tence of  knowledge  seems  despicable  to  him.  Yet  when  it  comes 
to  the  application  of  his  fundamental  principle  to  any  concrete 
instance,  the  professed  agnostic  is  as  eager  as  another  man  to 
know  what  the  being  "  really  "  is,  what  the  event  which  "  actu- 
ally "  took  place,  or  in  what  terms  of  a  general  formula  we  may 
express  "  truthfully  "  the  habitual  transactions  of  things.  And 
to  accuse  him  of  not  caring  for  the  truth  would  be  as  unjust  as 
to  bring  the  same  accusation  against  the  most  honorable  of 
the  dogmatists.  But  truth  is  a  word  which  has  no  meaning 
without  the  implicate  of  reality.  And  we  need  only  to  con- 
sider the  very  nature  of  cognitive  judgment  in  order  to  see 
that  it  is  always  pronounced  with  that  trans-subjective  refer- 
ence which  is  the  fundamental  tie  between  the  subject's  pass- 
ing, state  and  the  object's  relatively  permanent  existence. 

The  emotional  warmth,  however,  with  which  men  somewhat 
habitually  clothe  their  use  of  the  word  reality  is  not  by  any 
means  a  purely  scientific  affair.  Its  potency  consists  even 
more  obviously  in  its  relation  to  our  practical  and  ethical 
interests.  We  want  to  know  the  reality  of  things  because  we 
have  got  to  act  —  to  conduct  ourselves  ill  or  worthily,  safely 
or  harmfully  —  in  view  of  this  reality.  What  that  particular 
thing  is.  what  that  alleged  event  actually  was,  on  what  habitual 
mode  of  the  behavior  of  things  we  may  reckon  under  a  certain 
set  of  circumstances,  it  concerns  us  to  know  in  a  practical 
way.  For  we  must  meet  the  thing,  or  use  the  thing ;  we  must 
prepare  for,  or  seek  to  thwart,  the  expected  event.  The  stream 
of  human  consciousness  does  not  flow  on  as  though  man's 
intellectual  constitution,  or  affective  disposition,  or  conative 


ANALYSIS  OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY        59 

effort,  were  its  sole  determining  source.  The  rather  is  the 
nature  and  direction  of  that  stream  dependent  upon  actual 
relations  with  a  system  of  trans-subjective  realities.  It  is  how- 
it  affects  me,  —  to  change  my  "  aesthesis,"  the  pleasure-pain 
series,  and  the  realization  of  my  conscious  plans,  —  that  gives 
its  significance  to  the  actuality  of  any  particular  thing.  In  a 
poetical  way  and  imaginative  mood,  I  may  speak  of  mind  as 
determining  my  interests  and  even  as  making  a  heaven  or  a  hell 
for  me ;  but,  after  all,  I  am  constantly  brought  back  to  new 
and  more  rational  estimates  of  the  importance  of  being  in 
certain  relations  to  the  environment  of  actual  things.  The 
actuality  that  is  in  the  environment,  the  reality  of  what  cannot 
be  resolved  into  a  mere  mood  or  state  of  the  self,  is  the 
important  practical  consideration  for  the  multitude  of  men. 

Account  must  also  be  taken  of  the  meaning  of  reality,  if 
one  is  to  lead  the  life  of  a  moral  and  social  being.  Such  a 
life  is  vaporous  unless  it  be  a  part  of  a  system  of  mutually  re- 
lated and  interdependent  realities.  We  cannot  even  conceive 
of  an  ethical  being  which  does  not  belong  to  such  a  system  of 
realities.  However  far  solipsism  and  agnosticism  may  go  in 
satisfying  our  intellectual  demands  for  an  account  of  the 
genesis  and  development  of  other  experience,  they  both  utterly 
break  down  under  the  weight  of  ethical  demands.  In  another 
connection  l  we  have  shown  in  detail  how  the  categorical  im- 
perative of  Kant  is  —  in  its  structure  and  not  to  speak  of  its 
applicability  to  the  actual  conditions  of  humanity  —  self-con- 
tradictory and  absurd,  without  the  admission  of  a  system  of 
ontological  implicates  such  as  his  own  critique  of  cognition 
has  distinctly  discredited.  The  Critique  of  Practical  Reason 
transcends  or  violates  every  conclusion  of  the  Critique  of 
Pure  Reason.  Solipsism  and  agnosticism  cannot  furnish  any 
intelligible  ground  for  ethics.  Men  always  understand  con- 

1  See  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  186  f . ;  and  Philosophy  of  Knowledge, 
chap.  xi.  ("Experience  and  the  Transcendent "),  and  chap.  xii.  ("The  Impli- 
cates of  Knowledge"). 


60  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

duct  as  a  transaction  between  self-existent  but  related  reali- 
ties, mediated  by  other  thing-like  realities.  Strip  off  this 
outfit  of  trans-subjective  assumptions,  references,  and  finished 
cognitions,  and  there  is  nothing  left  to  answer  to  the  word 
"  conduct."  Little  wonder,  then,  that  men  regard  the  con- 
ceptions embodied  in  the  word  Reality  as  of  the  highest 
practical  and  moral  import. 

But  we  must  also  notice  briefly  a  certain  aesthetical  potency 
as  belonging,  by  native  right,  to  this  same  conception.  There 
is  truth  in  Mr.  Balfour's  claim  that  a  part  of  the  equipment 
of  a  metaphysician  is  an  aesthetical  mind.  The  subjective 
ground  upon  which  this  claim  rests,  or  to  which  it  appeals,  it 
is  the  task  of  a  theory  of  knowledge  to  investigate.  The 
ontological  ground  for  the  same  claim  will  become  —  it  is 
reasonable  to  hope — somewhat  clearer  as  our  theory  of  reality 
is  developed.  The  claim  certainly  suggests  that  Reality  itself 
has,  as  a  necessary  part  of  its  very  conception,  a3sthetical 
"momenta,"  or  factors,  or  subordinate  conceptions.  What 
it  is  in  place  now  to  notice,  however,  is  this :  an  awakening 
of  human  aesthetical  consciousness  is  a  natural  response  to 
any  intelligent  conception  answering  to  this  word.  The  mind 
has  a  kind  of  respect,  a  feeling  of  awe  and  of  mystery,  for  that 
in  every  meanest  thing  which  is  real,  which  is  not  merely  its 
own  subjective  state  of  the  apprehension  or  the  conception  of 
the  thing.  The  sources  of  these  emotional  stirrings  are  indeed 
somewhat  difficult  to  explore.  But  they  lie  deep,  and  they 
persist  throughout  all  changes  in  history.  Nature,  our 
Mother,  stands  over  against  us  —  in  a  measure  ready  to  lend 
herself  to  our  wills,  but  in  still  larger  measure  independent 
of  our  wills ;  in  a  measure,  too,  capable  of  being  understood 
by,  and  taken  into  sympathy  with  ourselves,  but  in  still  larger 
measure  baffling  our  most  determined  efforts  and  our  pro- 
foundest  reflections.  If  we  perish,  she  persists;  and  from 
her  womb  new  and  strange  beings  are  ceaselessly  produced. 
Was  it  with  something  of  this  feeling  that  the  gentle  Spinoza 


ANALYSIS  OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY        61 

is  said  to  have  watched,  with  so  great  interest,  the  fierce 
fighting  of  spiders  ?  Surely  it  is  this  feeling  which  furnishes, 
in  part,  the  source  of  wide-spreading  nature-worship.  And 
how  else  shall  we  fully  justify  the  metaphysician's  tendency 
in  all  times  to  make  imposing,  by  capitals,  or  italics,  or  sono- 
rous and  often  unmeaning  phrases,  the  expression  of  this 
conception  in  its  most  universal  form  ?  Why  otherwise 
should  men  be  moved  before  such  mere  words  as  the  One 
Being,  the  all-inclusive  Becoming,  the  Reality,  the  Idea,  the 
Universal  Substance ;  or  even  Matter,  Force,  and  the  Un- 
knowable ? 

In  this  strange  potency  of  terms,  significant  of  the  trans- 
cendent Reality,  to  move  the  ethical  and  aesthetical  feel- 
ings of  man  do  we  find  the  partial  justification  of  Goethe's 
declaration :  — 

"Wer  Gott  nicJitfullt  in  alien  Lebenskreisen, 
Dem  werdet  Ihr  Ihn  nicht  beweisen  mil  Beweisen." 

For  in  "  all  the  spheres  of  life "  we  come  face  to  face  with 
reality;  and  as  we  know  it  concretely  and  yet  so  very  partially, 
and  mould  it  practically  while  being  ourselves  so  completely 
within  its  grasp,  we  feel  what  is  a  fact  of  cognition,  but  also 
what  lies  beyond  the  reach  of  our  cognitive  powers.  And 
synthesizing  this,  man  attains  a  conception  that  awakens  his 
aesthetical  nature  as  well  as  guides  and  limits  his  practical 
life. 

We  must  be  prepared,  then,  for  what  any  attempt  at  an 
analysis  of  the  term  "  reality "  makes  perfectly  obvious. 
And  this  is,  first,  a  certain  surprising  wealth  of  content  which 
rightly  belongs  to  the  most  meagre  conception  answering  to 
this  word ;  and,  second,  a  certain  something  over  and  beyond 
all  that  can  be  stated  as  the  result  of  merely  reflective  analy- 
sis. That  is  to  say  :  Every  real  being  is  known  as  real,  because 
it  is  presented  in  experience  under  a  variety  of  thought-forms  ; 
but  there  also  belongs  to  the  reality  of  every  being  given  in  our 


62  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

cognitive  experience,  somewhat  more  than  is  obvious  simply  to 
all  thought-forms.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  every  particular 
thing,  when  it  becomes  an  object  of  knowledge,  seems  to  say 
to  us :  "  1  am  here ;  look  and  you  will  know  in  part  what  I 
am ;  but  only  in  part,  for  there  is  that  in  my  being  which 
precedes  and  gives  unavoidable  conditions  to  your  fleeting  and 
fragmentary  act  of  knowledge ;  and  when  this  act  of  knowl- 
edge is  exhausted  and  has  passed  away,  I  shall  still  be 
essentially  unchanged."  By  repeated  experiences  of  this 
same  sort  the  mind  of  man  comes  to  hold  a  certain  vague 
yet  comprehensive  conception  of  reality,  in  general ;  of  what 
it  means  to  be  real,  and  of  what  is  the  totality  of  real  beings 
as  known  to  man.  And  this  we  perhaps  try  to  gather  to- 
gether into  some  single  pulse  of  thought,  and  to  express  in 
few  words  to  ourselves  or  to  others.  At  this  point  the  snare 
of  both  the  popular  and  the  scientific  and  systematic  meta- 
physics is  the  attempt  at  an  impossible  simplicity.  For 
neither  in  the  uncritical  assumption  that  actuality  is  exhausted 
by  the  "  crude  lumpishness  "  of  things,  nor  in  the  most  elab- 
orate but  merely  logical  arrangement  of  philosophical  abstrac- 
tions, can  the  mind  describe  all  that  its  experience  with  every 
particular  reality  implies.  And  when  we  try  to  gather  into 
one  sentence  all  our  experience  with  all  realities  we  can  — 
speaking  reverently  —  scarcely  be  more  definite,  and  at  the 
same  time  comprehensive,  than  to  say  that  they  bring  to  us. 
the  message  of  the  Infinite  and  the  Eternal :  "  I  am  that  I 
am." 

This  somewhat  too  mystical  way  of  expressing  a  funda- 
mental truth  of  metaphysics  is  certainly  in  need  of  further 
reflection  and  of  restatement.  We  must,  then,  drop  the  more 
vague  general  word,  "  Reality,"  and  inquire :  What  do  men 
mean  by  calling  any  thing,  event,  or  relation  real  ?  On  this 
point  the  sentence  with  which  Lotze  opens  his  system  of  meta- 
physics is  not  at  all  illumining  :  "  Real  (wirklich)"  says  he,  "  is 
a  term  we  apply  to  things  that  exist  in  contrast  with  those 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY         6E 

that  do  not  exist ;  to  events  that  happen,  in  distinction  from 
those  that  do  not  happen  ;  and  also  to  relations  which  obtain,, 
in  comparison  with  those  that  do  not  obtain."  For  this- 
sentence  does  not  even  tell  us  how  we  may  rightly  use  our 
words  ;  much  less  does  it  aim  to  instruct  us  as  to  what  is  the 
conception  we  should  attach  to  these  words.  Nor  does  the 
somewhat  celebrated  dictum  which  the  same  writer  afterwards 
proposes  and  defends  — "  To  be  (i.  e.  really)  is  to  stand  re- 
lated "  —  advance  us  more  than  a  single  step  upon  our  way. 
For  if  we  agree  with  Lotze  that  "  pure  being  is  an  abstraction,"" 
we  must  go  on  to  show  that  "  pure  "  relation  is  also  an  abstrac- 
tion. And  if  we  maintain  that  relation  is  a  category,  a  form 
of  cognition  under  which  all  real  beings  fall,  we  must  give  an 
almost  untold  wealth  of  meaning  to  the  conception  of  "  stand- 
ing "  under  this  category,  in  order  to  make  the  compound  term 
("  standing  in  relation")  express  our  entire  valid  experience 
in  the  cognition  of  any  particular  —  no  matter  how  insignifi- 
cant —  Thing. 

To  establish  on  a  firm  basis  of  incontestable  experience 
the  statement  just  made,  we  have  only  to  consider  all  that  is 
involved  in  our  knowledge  by  the  senses  of  any  particular 
thing  or  particular  event.  The  question  which  is  to  be 
answered  by  bringing  it  to  the  test  of  cognitive  experience  is 
this  :  What  is  it  really  to  be  ?  But  there  is  no  other  way  even 
to  begin  the  answer  to  this  question  than  to  make  a  study  of 
actually  existing  things  as  they  are  known  to  men.  Neither 
pure  mathematics,  nor  formal  logic,  nor  a  metaphysical  dialectics 
that  is  aloof  from  concrete  knowledge,  can  suggest  the  answery 
or  even  furnish  any  method  of  approach,  to  a  problem  like 
this.  Cognitive  experience  with  concrete  things  contains  at  its 
roots,  if  anywhere  it  is  to  be  found,  the  beginnings  to  a  true  answer 
of  the  metaphysical  problem.  When  we  examine  any  such 
experience  we  find  in  it,  as  experience,  a  living  contact  with 
reality,  which  relieves  us,  if  we  will  only  accept  and  deal 
candidly  and  yet  thoroughly  with  this  proffer  of  relief,  from 


€-±  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  results  of  two  equally  false  assumptions :  either  that  our 
logical  formulas  can  wholly  compass  reality,  or  that  reality  is 
simply  the  unverifiable  construct  of  our  own  thoughts.  For, 
when  looked  at  from  the  epistemological  point  of  view,  this 
knowledge  given  to  us  through  our  senses,  but  by  no  means 
wholly  in  terms  of  sensation,  implicates  a  being  not-ourselves 
that  is  limiting  and  opposing  our  wills  and  yet  is  ever  enter- 
ing into  actual  relations  with  us  in  manifold  ways.  With  this 
reality  every  cognitive  experience  with  the  senses  puts  us  into 
actual  and  vital  relations. 

When  we  turn  from  asking  ourselves,  What  am  /now  doing 
and  suffering  as  I  know  this  thing  ?  to  asking  ourselves,  What 
is  this  thing  which,  by  my  doing  and  suffering,  I  am  coming 
to  know  ?  the  answer  to  the  latter  question  may  be  almost 
indefinitely  prolonged  and  varied.  But  each  item  posited  in 
answer  to  this  question  is  required  for  its  fullest  answer  ;  and 
when  all  the  items  have  been  handed  in  and  estimated  as  fully 
as  possible,  the  answer  is,  in  every  case,  by  no  means  com- 
plete. For  every  single  thing, —  no  matter  what,  whether 
crystal  or  flower,  stone  or  star,  amoeba  or  human  body, — 
really  is  essentially  all  that  every  other  thing  is,  all  indeed 
that  the  known  universe  of  things  can  claim  to  be.  Its  real 
being  is  no  bare  simplicity  of  existence  ;  its  real  being  has  all 
the  variety  of  the  universe  concentrated  in  it.  Its  being  is  an 
epitome  of  all  things  ;  and  it  may  be  known  as  such  to  us. 

Every  real  Thing  is,  then,  an  actualization,  in  an  individual 
way,  of  all  the  categories,  or  necessary  and  universal  forms  of 
all  existence.  It  is  a  concrete  and  harmonious  unifying  of 
these  categories. 

Now  it  is  not  the  part  of  the  metaphysician,  who  is  a  candid 
and  thorough  seeker  for  a  valid  answer  to  the  question, 
"  What  is  it  to  be  real  as  this  Thing  is  ? "  to  play  hocus-pocus 
with  the  testimony  of  his  own  experience.  It  is  not  his  part 
to  manufacture  contradictions  and  collisions  between  his  own 
thoughts  and  then  to  objectify  these  unhappy  conclusions  in  the 


ANALYSIS  OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF   REALITY        65 

reality  given  to  his  experience.  We  repeat :  The  thing  holds 
in  its  being  all  the  categories,  in  perfect  harmony,  and  in 
living  consistency  with  its  own  continued  existence.  Its 
being  is  the  harmonizing  and  unifying  of  all  those  conceptions 
with  which  the  critique  of  metaphysics  has  to  deal.  In  the 
actual  thing,  as  I  and  other  men  see,  handle,  and  use  it,  and 
learn  about  where  it  comes  from  and  what  it  will  do,  attributes 
are  not  divorced  from  substance  (whatever  we  may  mean  by 
this  latter  word).  In  the  actual  thing  there  is  no  contra- 
diction set  up  between  unity  and  variety,  between  motion  and 
rest,  between  being  and  becoming.  These  contrasts  and  con- 
tradictions arise  amongst  the  crude  abstractions  of  the  thinker 
who  has  somehow  gone  astray  in  his  thinking ;  they  are  not 
actually  existent  between  the  parts  of  the  one  reality  as  given 
to  the  cognitive  experience  of  men ;  or  between  this  particular 
reality  and  other  equally  real  things.  Contrasts  and  con- 
tradictions enough,  of  a  certain  sort,  there  are  in  that  system  (?) 
of  realities  we  call  the  World.  But  they  are  such  as  can- 
not wholly  be  harmonized  in  any  one  concrete  existence. 
Whereas  all  the  essential  factors  and  forms  of  being  which 
belong  to  the  conception  of  a  "  thing  "  are  harmoniously  pres- 
ent, to  our  cognitive  experience,  in  every  concrete  thing. 

Our  thought  needs  illustration  from  some  example.  And  as 
an  example  that  is  fit  indeed  to  illustrate  the  truth  of  a  whole 
system  of  metaphysics,  anything  will  do.  Let  us  go  into  the 
garden  and  stand  before  a  rose-bush  in  full  bloom.  What  is 
the  answer  which  this  particular  thing  gives  to  the  ontological 
problem :  What  is  it  to  be  real  ?  To  get  any  answer  at  all, 
we  must  ask  this  particular  thing,  definitively  and  persistently  : 
What  really  art  thou  ?  In  the  first  "  pulse  of  attention  "  with 
which  we  regard  the  rose-bush  its  reality  becomes  only 
vaguely  defined  in  the  consciousness  of  the  observer.  It  is  first 
apprehended  as  something  that  is  not-ourselves,  —  there,  out 
of  us  and  present  before  us,  but  needing  further  definition  as 

to  size,  shape,  significance,  and  use,  of  itself  as  a  whole  and  of 

5 


66  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

its  various  parts.  But  persistent  application  of  all  our  cogni- 
tive faculties  —  and  these  include  all  the  forms  of  the  living 
existence  of  the  knower  —  progressively  defines  what  this 
being  in  particular  is.  The  answer  we  get  as  we  know  more 
about  the  rose-bush  is  a  succession  of  cognitive  experiences 
in  us  which  is  interpreted  as  a  simultaneous  possession  by  the 
thing,  of  its  various  qualities.  The  experiences  are  a  suc- 
cession of  states  in  us ;  but  the  thing  possesses  all  the 
qualities  at  the  same  time.  We  see  that  it  is  crimson,  that 
it  has  so  many  petals,  sepals,  etc. ;  that  it  answers  to  our 
memory-picture  of  such  a  species  with  such  a  name.  We 
know  it  as  having  these  qualities  and  being  of  such  a  name. 
But  now  we  invoke  our  other  senses  to  make  the  flower-bush 
tell  us  what  it  really  is ;  and  with  the  result  that  we  are 
affected  by  its  odor,  feel  its  soft,  velvety  leaves,  suffer  the 
prick  of  its  thorns,  and  are  resisted  in  our  -effort  to  break 
through  its  stalks.  This,  then,  is  what  it  actually  is  to  us,  as 
answering  our  metaphysical  inquiry  through  the  media  of  our 
unaided  senses.  Let  this  thing  thereupon  be  taken  to  the 
physicist,  the  chemist,  the  botanist,  the  biologist,  the 
historian,  or  to  the  painter,  the  poet,  or  other  student  of 
the  aesthetical.  And  they  shall  all  be  made  to  contribute 
volumes  in  answer  to  our  questionings  after  information  as  to 
what  really  is  this  so  humble  and  so  insignificant  a  thing. 

When  the  various  answers  to  the  ontological  problem  from 
the  different  preliminary  points  of  view  —  practical,  scientific, 
and  aesthetical — have  been  received,  let  the  student  of  sys- 
tematic metaphysics  raise  his  peculiar  form  of  inquiry. 
What  is  this  particular  thing  known  to  be,  as  possessing 
those  characteristics  that  connect  it  with  the  system  of 
things  ?  Its  very  reality  consists  in  its  having  all  the  es- 
sential characteristics  common  to  all  things  ;  and,  as  well, 
in  having  them  all  in  some  sort  of  a  harmonious  and  vital 
unity.  The  rose-bush  occupied,  and  yet  could  be  moved  about 
in,  space ;  it  endured,  and  yet  changed  in,  time  ;  it  supported 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY         67 

and  evinced  many  qualities ;  it  suffered  and  did  many  things 
to  us  and  to  other  beings,  in  a  great  variety  of  relations ;  it 
could  be  weighed  and  measured  and  counted,  as  a  whole  or 
in  its  separable  parts ;  it  had  a  certain  characteristic  form 
and  fell  under  certain  well-known  or  conjectural  laws.  In 
brief  but  figurative  language  :  It  showed  itself  possessed  of  all 
the  categories.  Quality,  Relation,  Change,  Time,  Space  and 
Motion,  Force  and  Causation,  Quantity  and  Measure,  Unity 
and  Number,  Form,  Law,  and  Final  Purpose  —  they  were  all 
present  and  harmoniously  operative  in  this  one  single  thing. 
It  was  this  unity  effected  in  all  the  categories  which  made  the 
rose-bush  a  valid  "  specimen  "  of  what  an  actual  Thing  is. 

Considered  as  content  for  conception,  every  experience  of 
cognitive  perception  gives  this  same  full  meaning  in  answer  to 
the  inquiry  :  What  is  it  to  be  real  ?  No  one  conception,  or  class 
of  conceptions,  to  the  exclusion  of  others,  is  sufficient  to  furnish 
the  satisfactory  answer.  The  rather  is  every  particular  thing 
known  to  be  real  according  to  the  fulness  of  the  answer  with 
which  it  actually  satisfies  all  these  forms  of  conception.  And 
further,  the  very  nature  of  thinking  is  such  that,  for  pur- 
poses of  thought,  we  may  indeed  render  the  different  parts  of. 
our  experience  abstract;  but  if  we  render  any  part  abstract, 
by  a  separation  of  it  in  thought  from  the  others,  we  fail  to 
take  into  account  by  our  thinking  all  that  our  cognitive  ex- 
perience actually  implies.  Our  theory  of  reality  will  thus 
become  too  poor  to  embrace  any  meanest  thing  as  it  is  known 
to  the  weakest  of  really  human  intellects.  In  this  respect  the 
nature  of  Reality  is  at  variance  with  the  nature  of  thought  ; 
the  nature  of  Reality  is  rather  in  accord  with  the  total  nature 
of  our  experience  with  our  self  and  with  things.  The  bearings 
of  this  conclusion  must  now  be  left  for  future  reconsideration 
and  further  development. 

Attention  has  already  been  called  to  the  experience  of  man  as 
a  knower,  that  every  particular  being  actually  answers  the 
metaphysical  question,  What  is  it  to  be  real  ?  in  a  way  that 


68  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

is  not  wholly  exhausted  by  even  the  most  complete  analysis 
of  human  thoughts.  The  evidences  for  this  are  found  in  the 
cognitive  experience  itself,  in  all  the  language  which  men 
employ  to  designate  the  garnered  results  of  this  experience, 
and  in  the  outspoken  theories  or  covert  admissions  of  meta- 
physicians of  every  school.  This  "  something  more  "  is  of  two 
kinds,  which  may  be  regarded  from  two  quite  different  points 
of  view.  In  the  first  place,  in  our  most  complete  knowledge  of 
every  thing  there  is  involved  the  consciousness  of  a  present 
limitation  of  cognition  as  to  what  the  particular  thing  is, 
with  an  added  consciousness  of  the  possibility  of  this  thing 
being  known  to  myself  or  to  others  in  manifold  other  ways  — 
either  conceivable  or  inconceivable  by  them  and  by  me.  I 
can  now  indeed  tell,  on  a  basis  of  my  own  experience,  only 
a  short  but  true  story  as  to  what  I  know  this  "  thing  "  to  be. 
But  the  story  "  as-to-what "  the  thing  really  is  admits  of  an 
indefinite  expansion.  There  is  always,  then,  to  imagination 
and  to  thought,  the  suggestion  of  a  more  beyond,  as  possibly 
belonging  to  the  nature  of  the  thing.  This  it  is,  in  part, 
which  makes  fetish  worship  so  spontaneous  in  the  ignorant ; 
and  it  is  this  which  spurs  to  ceaseless  explorations  the  scien- 
tific mind. 

There  is  in  every  real  Thing,  moreover,  another  kind  of 
"  something  more "  than  that  which  can  be  stated  in  any 
terms  of  thought.  And  this  is  the  answer  in  our  experience 
which  the  object  gives  to  the  inquiry  whether  it  is  a  reality 
at  all  or  not.  Now  this  answer  can  never  be  completed  by 
a  mere  multiplication  of  qualities,  activities,  and  relations, 
that  are  without  any  "  common  point  of  attachment."  This 
answer  is  only  to  be  completed  by  the  positing,  with  convic- 
tion, of  some  common  point  of  attachment  for  all  the  par- 
ticular qualities,  activities,  and  relations.  We  add  to  our 
knowledge  as-to-what  any  particular  thing  is,  only  on  the 
basis  of  a  knowledge,  somehow  already  assumed  or  gained, 
that  just  this  particular  thing  really  is.  We  qualify  only  that 


ANALYSIS  OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY         69 

which  is  experienced  as  actual.  But  the  mental  affirmation 
of  the  actuality  of  any  object  of  our  cognitive  experience  has 
somewhat  different  roots  in  this  experience  from  those  out  of 
which  grow  the  different  qualifications  of  the  same  object. 
Knowledge  of  the  qualities,  changes,  and  relations  of  things 
is  the  result  of  activities  belonging  to  discriminating  con- 
sciousness, in  which  continual  and  indefinite  growth  is  pos- 
sible. But  the  real  existence  of  any  thing  cannot  be  made 
clear  by  a  mere  description  of  consciousness  "  content- wise ; " 
nor  can  it  be  represented  in  terms  of  mental  images  merely, 
or  in  the  fuller  terms  of  conception  and  reasoning.  These 
terms  all  need  some  "  point  of  attachment,"  as  it  were,  some 
factor  in  the  cognitive  process  which  shall  serve,  on  account 
of  its  relative  stability,  to  give  to  them  the  unity  and  solidar- 
ity which  belong  to  man's  experience  with  what  he  calls  real. 
For  the  Self,  such  a  factor  in  every  act  of  self-knowledge  is 
not  difficult  to  find.  It  is  found  in  that  immediately  felt  self- 
activity  which  is  the  central  element  in  each  particular  act 
of  self-knowledge.  I  know  myself  as  actually  existing,  be- 
cause in  all  knowledge  of  myself  this  felt  self -activity  is 
present  as  a  sort  of  point  of  attachment  for  the  particular 
forms  of  the  experience  which  I  know  myself  to  have.  Gen- 
eralizing, and  expressing  the  results  of  reflection  in  an  ab- 
stract way  :  —  I  know  that  I  am  ;  because,  as  the  basis  of  all 
discriminations  as  to  what  I  am,  and  as  the  core  of  all  such 
self-knowledge,  I  immediately  know  myself  as  will. 

In  the  growing  knowledge  of  self,  the  knowledge  of  things 
is  interwoven ;  and  both  in  character  and  in  amount,  the  two 
kinds  of  knowledge  are  interdependent.  For  all  my  knowl- 
edge is  of  my  Self  as  a  will  that  is  impeded,  checked,  limited 
by  that  which  I  cannot  identify  with  this  self.  This  "  some- 
thing-other-than-myself,"  which  is  confused  and  mingled  with 
myself  in  all  the  earliest  stages  of  mental  development  and  in 
every  subsequent  pulse  of  attention  that  does  not  secure  a 
completed  act  of  clear  knowledge,  becomes  divided  up  into 


70  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

many  points  of  attachment  for  the  various  qualifications  of 
so-called  things.  But  what  meaning  shall  be  given  to  such 
of  these  points  of  attachment  as  cannot,  by  the  very  terms 
of  the  growth  in  knowledge,  be  identified  with  the  active  and 
suffering  Self  ?  What  meaning  can  be  given,  other  than  to 
regard  them  after  the  analogy  of  what  is  so  immediately  and 
indubitably  recognized  in  one's  own  existence  ?  These  are 
the  points  of  attachment  for  the  qualifications  which  are 
"  not-self."  They  are  existences  in  reality  ;  but  they  are  ex- 
istences which  I  have  come  to  know  as  not-me.  They  are 
things  ;  and  they  could  not  be  conceived  of  as  real  unless 
I  attributed  to  them  a  core  of  self-activity  similar  to  that  which 
I  feel  in  myself  and  call  my  will.  That  things  actually  are  is, 
then,  a  factor  in  my  knowledge  of  them  which  springs  from  the 
root  of  an  experience  with  myself  as  a  will,  at  once  active  and 
inhibited,  as  an  agent  and  yet  opposed  by  another.  That  in 
any  thing  which  is  the  point  of  the  attachment  for  all  those 
qualities  which  the  growth  of  knowledge  ascribes  to  this 
particular  thing,  is  identical  in  its  being  with  what,  in  our- 
selves, we  call  "  will." 

The  further  amplification  and  defence  of  the  conclusion 
just  reached  belongs  to  subsequent  chapters.  It  is  enough 
at  present  to  note  that  all  cognitive  experience  with  things 
carries  in  itself  the  provision  for  such  central  points  of 
attachment;  and  that  this  provision  is  not  made  primarily 
by  any  growth  in  the  clearness  and  multitude  of  our 
thoughts ;  it  is  rather  given  in  the  fact  that  all  knowing 
involves  the  immediate  experience  of  Self  and  of  Things,  as 
our  Will  inhibited  and  limited  by  other  will.  The  way  that 
popular  and  scientific  language  recognizes  this  characteris- 
tic of  all  human  cognitive  experience  with  things  is  full  of 
suggestions  for  the  metaphysician.  In  spite  of  objections 
from  psychologists  and  of  sarcasms  from  idealistic  metaphysi- 
cians, the  popular  niind  refuses  to  be  satisfied  with  the  doc- 
trine that  all  of  any  reality  is  expressed  by  summing-up  its 


ANALYSIS  OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF   REALITY         71 

qualities ;  nor  is  this  refusal  mitigated  by  the  offer  of  psy- 
chology or  of  metaphysics  to  add :  "  so  far  as  we  know " 
things,  or  considered  as  things  "for  us,"  etc. 

By  various  figures  of  speech  the  popular  effort  is  made  to 
express  the  disbelief  that  the  mind  is  itself  a  mere  "  stream 
of  consciousness ;  "  or  that  the  external  object  which  the  mind 
knows  is  a  mere  bundle  of  attributes  —  a  bundle  somehow 
got  together  by  circumstances,  or  come  together  into  a  tem- 
poral unity  without  unifying  activity  of  its  own.  On  the  con- 
trary, every  Thing  or  Mind  must  be  regarded  as  "  that  which  " 
has  the  qualities ;  as  "  that  to  which "  the  properties  belong. 
The  word  u  qualities  "  means,  in  the  popular  estimate,  the  vari- 
ous answers  which  the  reality  gives  to  our  inquiry  as  to  the 
sort,  or  lot  (quails),  among  realities,  to  which  this  particular 
thing  belongs.  Properties  are  the  "  very  own  "  of  the  things  ; 
but  the  things  are  the  owners  of  the  properties.  In  vain  does 
the  expert  make  common  folk  stare  with  his  unanswerable 
inquiry:  And  what  would  be  left  of  any  thing  after  all  its 
qualities  have  been  removed  ?  or,  What  can  you  make  clear 
to  thought  regarding  the  being  of  the  thing,  that  is  not  stat- 
able in  terms  of  its  properties  or  its  relations  ?  There  can, 
indeed,  be  no  doubt  about  the  answers  to  these  inquiries : 
No  reality,  but  only  an  abstraction,  is  left  after  the  qualities 
are  thought  away ;  and,  of  course,  properties  and  relations 
all  imply  the  results  of  thought  upon  experience  with  reali- 
ties. Yet  men  continue,  and  will  continue,  to  believe  that 
there  is  somewhat  more  in  every  thing  than  can  be  defined 
to  thought  by  an  enumeration  of  its  properties  and  rela- 
tions ;  and  this  "  somewhat  more  "  is,  even  if  the  conceptions 
of  men  regarding  properties  and  relations  be  indefinitely 
extended,  necessary  to  the  reality  of  the  thing.  Such  a 
necessity  is  laid  in  the  very  foundations  of  all  human 
knowledge.  It  is  the  self-felt  life  of  a  living  Will. 

It  will  subsequently  be  shown  how  inconsistently  the  physi- 
cal  sciences   are   accustomed    to   deal   in   referring  to   this 


72  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

"  something  "  which  is  more  than  a  mere  enumeration  of  the 
qualities  and  relations  of  things.  But  these  sciences  hold  to 
their  belief  in  this  "  something  more  "  as  a  central  article  of 
their  common  creed.  They  all  unite  in  generalizing  upon  the 
basis  of  their  experiences  with  individual  things,  and  thus 
frame  an  elaborate  conception  of  "matter"  in  general. 
They  feel  the  necessity  for  a  greater  wealth  of  real  exis- 
tence than  is  covered  by  even  this  elaborate  conception ; 
and  so  they  have  recently  posited  another  kind  of  being,  or 
active  agent,  to  which  the  name  of  "  ether "  is  customarily 
given.  And  the  achievements  of  nineteenth  century  physics 
are  largely  summed  up  in  the  conception  of  ether.  Now 
that  modern  physics  is  provided  with  two  great  kinds  of 
entities,  —  matter  and  ether,  —  both  of  which  may  stand 
as  subjects  for  the  manifold  new  qualities  and  relations  of 
things  which  it  is  discovering,  this  science  feels  itself  much 
better  equipped  for  the  handling  of  phenomena.  It  may 
complacently  go  on  in  its  work  of  defining  matter,  and  de- 
fining ether,  by  the  very  proper,  specific  method  of  telling 
us  what  these  beings  can  become  and  can  do. 

But  the  physical  sciences  keenly  feel  and  frankly  confess 
the  limitations  of  their  knowledge  as  to  the  nature  both  of 
matter  and  of  ether.  And  they  are  wont  to  say,  when 
pressed,  that  we  do  not  know,  and  probably  never  shall 
know,  the  "  essence "  of  either.  They  are  ready  to  turn 
over  to  metaphysicians  further  inquiry  as  to  the  real  beings 
which  correspond  to  these  conceptions.  Still  the  physical 
sciences,  in  telling  us  what  particular  things  are  and  can 
do,  must  always  have  nouns  for  their  adjectives  and  their 
verbs.  They  must  also  employ  substantive  terms  in  the 
statement  of  their  higher  and  their  supreme  generalizations. 
This  necessity  is  upon  them,  even  when  the  modesty  of  the 
scientific  mind  induces  some  such  expression  as  an  "un- 
known and  unknowable  that-which"  to  substitute  for  the 
more  definite  conceptions  of  matter  and  of  ether.  And  not 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY         73 

infrequently  the  Samsons  among  the  true  Israel  of  science 
give  such  a  strong  agnostic  hug  to  the  two  pillars  (matter 
and  ether)  upon  which  the  temple  above  them  reposes,  as  to 
be  in  danger  of  bringing  it  down  upon  their  own  heads.  But 
if  these  pillars  were  pulled  down,  men  could  never  build 
again  the  temple  of  the  physical  sciences  as  a  system  of 
cognitions  touching  reality,  without  putting  other  substantive 
existences,  other  entities,  in  their  place.  Now  from  the  epis- 
temological  point  of  view  all  this  manner  of  speech  is  but 
testimony  to  that  root  of  cognition  which  lies  too  deep  down 
in  experience  to  be  ever  exposed  merely  by  reflective  think- 
ing. And  from  the  metaphysical  point  of  view,  the  same 
manner  of  speaking  shows  how  the  reality  of  any  thing  in- 
volves that  it  is,  as  somewhat  too  deep  in  its  significance  to 
be  wholly  disclosed  by  telling  what  it  is  —  to  me  and  to  other 
minds. 

All  schools  of  philosophy,  too,  virtually  recognize  that  ful- 
ness of  meaning  to  men's  cognitive  experience  with  the  real- 
ity of  things,  upon  which  we  are  insisting.  The  philosophical 
uses  of  words  like  "  substance,"  "  substantiality,"  etc.,  have 
perhaps  happily  gone  by.  The  debate  between  realism  and 
phenomenalism,  in  any  form  assumed  by  either  party  to  the 
long  contention,  will  scarcely  again  repeat  the  terminology  of 
Locke,  or  of  Berkeley,  or  of  the  Wolfian  school  as  it  preceded 
the  critical  thinking  of  Kant.  Metaphysics  to-day  has  little 
more  patience  with  the  assumed  Ding-an-sichheit  of  the  great 
critic  of  cognition  himself.  But  the  distinctions  out  of  which 
these  terms  arose,  so  far  as  they  lie  in  that  nature  which  we 
are  obliged  to  give  to  every  object,  because  the  distinctions 
set  the  very  terms  on  which  we  know  it  at  all,  remain  essen- 
tially unchanged.  Without  assuming  some  being  which  is 
the  subject  of  the  phenomena,  no  philosophy  can  state  either 
its  problem  or  its  conclusions.  With  Mr.  Spencer  the  dis- 
tinctions find  expression  in  such  terms  as  the  "  Unknown 
Force,"  which  is  the  universal  subject,  and  the  varied  known 


74  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

or  as  yet  unknown  forms  of  its  "  manifestation."  Teich- 
miiller  —  to  take  another  example  —  would  handle  the  prob- 
lem of  reality  by  starting  out  from  the  distinction  between 
Beziehungs-punkte  and  Beziehungs-formen.  On  beginning 
the  metaphysician's  task  one  may  signalize  the  same  truth 
by  positing  a  perfectly  indefinite  being  of  all  things,  which 
may  as  well  be  called  an  X.  The  nature  of  this  X  is  thus 
made  the  main  ontological  problem.  But  the  presence,  in 
every  particular  thing  known  to  us  and  in  the  whole  world  of 
Reality,  as  a  condition  of  its  being  known,  of  a  "  somewhat" 
which  shall  serve  as  a  point  of  attachment  for  the  qualities 
and  relations,  must  be  assumed  as  an  obvious  feature  of 
cognitive  experience.  And  this  truth  —  as  we  have  said  — 
is  proved  by  an  analysis  of  this  experience,  by  the  meaning 
of  all  popular  and  scientific  language  about  things,  and  by 
the  admissions,  if  not  the  avowed  doctrines,  of  every  system 
of  philosophy. 

It  is  out  of  this  root  of  cognitive  experience,  which  is  a  felt 
activity  belonging  to  the  self,  but  is  felt  as  inhibited  and  lim- 
ited by  that  which  cannot  be  identified  with  the  self,  that  the 
firm  and  abiding  trunk  of  the  tree  of  Reality  has  its  growth. 
Hence  comes  —  to  borrow  the  language  of  Riehl 1  —  "  the 
compulsion  to  apprehend  every  sense-experience  as  the  sense- 
experience  of  Something,  as  the  property  of  some  subject 
(-3T)."  Otherwise  the  mind  would  never,  by  any  amount  of 
development  of  reasoning  faculty,  reach  beyond  an  internal 
and  subjective  logical  consistency.  Universally  valid  forms 
of  cognition  can  never  alone  serve  to  validate  cognition.  Ex- 
perience of  a  will  in  commerce  with  other  will  is  necessary 
for  this.  But  every  act  of  cognitive  experience,  since  it  is 
something  more  than  pure  thinking  or  mere  imagining,  fur- 
nishes the  "  that "  of  some  reality  to  which  our  thinking  and 
our  imagining  may  attach  all  that  they  can  discover  as  to 
"  what "  belongs  to  the  same  reality.  And  for  every  system 

1  Der  Philosophische  Kriticismus,  II.  i.  p.  42. 


ANALYSIS   OF   THE   CONCEPTION   OF   REALITY  75 

of  answers  to  the  question,  What  is  it  really  to  be  ?  there 
must  be  found  an  answer  to  the  doubt  whether  we  are  entitled 
to  affirm  :  That  something  really  is. 

It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  every  system  of  metaphysics  may 
also  be  entitled  a  Theory  of  Reality.  The  expounding  of  the 
inexhaustible  wealth  of  meaning  which  men  put  into  that 
word,  "  reality,"  can  never  be  all  discovered  and  reduced  to 
coin  current  in  the  realm  of  thought,  by  any  amount  of 
miner's  skill  and  miner's  toil.  On  the  side  of  conception, 
where  the  ontological  problem  can  be  attacked  with  the 
detailed  analysis  of  reflective  thinking,  there  is  always  more 
beyond,  which  others  may  discover.  All  the  growth  in 
knowledge  which  the  individual  can  make  is  his  best  answer 
to  the  question :  What  is  Reality  ?  And  the  answer  is  never 
complete  for  him.  But  all  the  growth  of  knowledge  which 
the  race  of  man  makes  is  the  answer  of  the  race  to  the  same 
question.  And  the  answer  of  the  race  will  never  be  complete. 
There  is  always  more  beyond  for  observation  and  for  thought 
to  compass.  Yet  in  every  individual  Thing  also  there  is  an- 
other kind  of  "  surplusage  " —  so  to  speak.  This  is  that  which 
in  ourselves,  we  experience  as  the  fact  of  being  in  existence, 
and  which  we  conceive  of  as  a  potency  of  manifesting  itself 
in  a  variety  of  ways.  And  we  never  know  any  external 
thing  without  projecting  into  that  thing  this  potency,  after 
the  analogy  of  our  own  selves.  It  is  only  on  such  terms  that 
we  maintain  our  commerce,  as  real  minds,  with  a  system  of 
really  existing  things. 

There  are  many  apparent  contradictions  which  must  be  met 
in  the  attempt  to  elaborate  the  conception  of  reality  in  its 
details ;  and  there  are  certain  inherent  difficulties  which  it 
will  never  be  found  possible  to  overcome.  But  for  this  very 
reason  it  is  desirable  not  to  multiply  difficulties  unnecessarily ; 
and  to  get  as  many  as  possible  of  the  more  superficial  contra- 
dictions out  of  the  way.  To  this  end  the  following  remarks 
will  serve  in  a  measure. 


76  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Reality  cannot  be  considered  as  a  mere  Process.  That 
change  in  qualities  and  in  relations  is  not  inconsistent  with, 
but  is  rather  necessary  to  the  reality  of  things,  we  shall  see 
subsequently.  How  the  actuality  of  such  change  is  consistent 
with  any  kind  of  permanency,  and  what  kind  of  permanency 
such  actual  change  makes  it  necessary  to  recognize,  —  these 
are  among  the  special  problems  of  metaphysics.  But  how- 
ever far  the  principle  of  Becoming  may  be  extended,  we  can 
never  identify  this  principle  with  the  entire  conception  of 
Reality.  To  say  that  nothing  but  the  process  is  in  reality,  — 
this  is  to  say  that  nothing  is  in  reality.  This  truth  is  the 
more  important  to  bear  in  mind  when,  as  at  the  present  time, 
the  philosophy  of  things  is  so  liable  to  be  reduced  to  a  merely 
descriptive  history  of  evolution.  This  view  regards  the  real 
being  of  the  world  as  a  sort  of  mere  show  —  a  stage- 
performance  without  an  audience.  Countless  ages  ago  the 
show  was  going  on ;  and  this  same  show  has  been  going  on 
ever  since.  Before  mind  was,  the  process  in  things  began, 
and  went  forward  to  result  in  the  appearance  of  human  minds. 
But  a  show  that  is  not  a  show  of  some  reality,  and  a  show  to 
some  real  and  conscious  Self,  cannot  be  actual.  No  view  can 
well  be  more  absurd,  as  an  attempt  at  thinking  the  reality  of 
things  in  terms  of  cognition,  than  this  off-hand  identification 
of  a  row  of  mental  images  of  possible  things  with  the  entire 
actuality  of  things  themselves.  Nor  can  we,  in  the  case  of 
any  individual  thing,  resolve  its  whole  real  being  into  a  mere 
process  —  mid-air,  as  it  were  —  with  which  our  series  of 
mental  images  is  assumed  to  be  identical. 

Nor  can  Reality  be  considered  as  mere  Law.  What  is  meant 
by  things  obeying  laws,  and  what  is  the  reality  that  any  law 
may  have,  are  problems  for  metaphysical  discussion  to  settle, 
if  it  can.  But  whatever  conception  be  attached  to  the  word 
"  law,"  as  ruling  over  things,  or  as  immanent  in  things,  or  as 
nothing  but  an  abstraction  of  human  thought  derived  from 
the  observed  modes  of  the  behavior  of  things,  this  conception 


ANALYSIS  OF  THE  CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY        77 

is  quite  too  meagre  to  give  the  full  meaning  of  the  term 
reality.  Moreover,  when  we  come  to  observe  how  the  par- 
ticular application  of  the  conception  to  groups  and  classes  of 
real  things  itself  changes  with  every  changing  point  of  view, 
we  shall  understand  better  the  vanity  of  trying  to  exhaust  the 
content  of  reality  by  stating  it  in  terms  of  law.  The  con- 
ception of  "  Law  "  in  general,  even  when  enforced  with  a  cap- 
ital letter,  is  one  of  the  most  inert  and  incapable  of  all 
abstract  notions. 

Neither  can  Reality  be  identified  with  the  entire  Content 
of  human  consciousness.  For  on  the  side  of  consciousness 
itself,  there  are  many  of  its  products  for  the  real  correlates 
of  which  we  cannot  possibly  vouch ;  and  not  a  few  which,  by 
their  very  nature  as  mental  constructs,  violate  all  that  we 
know  about  the  fixed  forms  and  most  permanent  laws  of 
trans-subjective  reality.  Nor  do  we  need  to  go  in  our  scepticism 
upon  this  point  as  far  as  did  Kant.  The  entire  doctrine  of 
truth  and  error  forbids  our  identifying  the  content  of  human 
consciousness  throughout  with  the  real  being  and  actual 
relations  and  changes  of  things.  It  has  been  supposed  —  and 
this  in  the  reflections  of  philosophical  circles  as  well  as  in  the 
puzzles  with  which  the  common  people  have  been  awed  — 
that  the  impossibility  of  making  any  universally  tenable  dis- 
tinctions between  the  illusions  of  dreams  and  the  percep- 
tions of  waking  life,  for  example,  compels  us  to  some  sort  of 
identification  of  the  two.  That  the  same  activities  of  mind, 
under  the  same  laws,  account  for  both  illusions  and  percep- 
tions is  a  psychological  truth  which  we  have  always  been 
ready  to  insist  upon.  One  may  go  even  further,  and  affirm 
that  no  facts  of  clairvoyance,  or  of  telepathy,  or  of  spiritualistic 
vision,  have  as  yet  been  shown  to  afford  avenues  of  commerce 
with  reality  that  are  essentially  unlike  those  used  in  all  the 
ordinary  work-a-day  life.  But  this  does  not  change  essentially 
the  deeper-lying  truth.  It  does  not  appear  even  to  touch  that 
truth.  The  very  words  "  illusion,"  "  hallucination,"  "  error  "  — 


78  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

and  the  more  contemptuous  terms  which  men  so  freely  bestow 
upon  what  they  believe  to  be  mere  thinking  or  mere  imagina- 
tion —  embody  and  enforce  this  truth.  Some  sure  cognition 
of  reality  it  is  indeed  possible  to  find  in  the  entire  "  stream 
of  consciousness "  we  call  a  mind.  For  illusions  and  hallu- 
cinations and  insane  ravings  and  cases  of  double  conscious- 
ness, and  every  shade  and  kind  of  queer  conceit  or  subtle 
impulse  or  bizarre  superstition,  may  afford  verifiable  knowl- 
edge as  to  the  real  being  of  the  human  mind.  But  all  this 
compels  us  the  more  stoutly,  and  enables  us  the  more  in- 
telligently, to  oppose  the  off-hand  identification  of  the  entire 
content  of  consciousness  with  the  whole  realm  of  reality. 

Neither  is  Reality  to  be  identified  with  the  inscrutable  and 
unknowable  Essence  of  things.  The  previous  view  confounds 
reality  with  the  u  crude  lumpishness  "  of  things  as,  in  the 
form  of  images,  they  arise  in,  and  ceaselessly  flow  away  from, 
the  "  specious  present "  of  consciousness ;  but  this  view  con- 
founds reality  with  the  most  rarefied  and  even  negative  ab- 
stractions of  reflective  thought.  The  former,  on  account  of 
its  apparent  clearness  and  the  ease  with  which  it  offers  itself 
to  the  man  of  what  Hegel  called  "  figurate  conception,"  has  a 
charm  for  shallow  minds.  The  latter  is  the  snare  of  those 
who  desire  to  be  profound  in  their  reflections.  The  one 
eventuates  in  positivism ;  the  other  tends  to  metaphysical 
mysticism. 

Three  principal  forms  have  been  taken  by  the  conclusions 
which  those  reflective  thinkers  have  reached  who  make  the 
mistake  of  identifying  Reality  with  the  highest  and  barest 
abstractions.  The  first  of  these  regards  the  real  being  of 
every  particular  mind  or  thing  as  consisting  in  some  "  hid- 
den core  "  of  existence.  This  view  results  from  so  expanding 
the  necessity  of  positing  what  we  have  called  "  a  point  of 
attachment"  for  all  qualities  and  relations  as  to  make  that 
which  is  thus  posited  commensurate  with  the  entire  extent  of 
reality.  Thus  the  qualities  and  relations  themselves  cease  to 


ANALYSIS    OF  THE  CONCEPTION   OF  REALITY  70 

be  essential  "  momenta  "  in  the  real  being  of  things  or  minds. 
2t  —  this  "  core  of  being  "  —  would  continue  to  be  the  essence 
of  the  particular  reality,  if  there  were  110  actual  qualities  or 
relations  to  be  taken  into  the  account.  Sometimes  this  hid- 
den, inscrutable  being  of  things  and  of  souls  slumbers  and 
sleeps  ;  but  it  always  abides  at  the  centre  of  the  soul  or  of  the 
thing,  whatever  may  become  of  the  superficial  manifestations. 
We  do  not  now J  object  to  every  such  form  of  substantialism 
simply  on  the  ground  that  it  is  unintelligible,  but  for  a  rea- 
son yet  more  serious  from  the  metaphysician's  point  of  view. 
It  aims  to  put  a  stout  heart  into  the  body  of  reality,  but  in 
fact  it  takes  all  the  life  out  of  this  body.  Whatever  else  we 
lose  from  our  conception  of  Reality,  we  must  not  part  with 
its  dynamical  elements,  with  its  power  to  do  the  work  de- 
manded of  it  by  that  world  of  things  and  of  minds  which  is 
known  to  science  and  is  the  ground  of  the  practical  life.  This 
ghostly  substantialism  leaves  only  the  bones  of  being  —  nay, 
it  leaves  but  a  single  bone  ;  it  has  neither  muscle,  nor  blood, 
nor  brain.  The  "  What "  of  things  belongs  as  truly  to  their 
essence  as  does  the  "  That "  of  things.  The  latter  never  can  be 
conceived  of  alone,  and  it  never  really  is  alone. 

The  second  form  of  identifying  Reality  with  some  rarefied 
and  negative  conception  runs  into  mysticism  in  an  opposite 
direction.  It  identifies  Reality  with  the  conception  of  the 
unknown  aspects  and  relations  of  things  ;  or  even  with  that 
which  is  unlike  all  known  aspects  and  relations,  —  the  Un- 
knowable in  general,  as  it  were.  Now  inasmuch  as  knowledge 
is  always  susceptible  of  growth,  in  the  individual  and  in  the 
race,  the  negative  conception  of  what  no  man  knows,  has 
known,  or  will  know,  may  easily  seem  larger  and  more  awe- 
inspiring  than  the  mental  image  which  tries  to  represent  in  a 
single  pulse  of  consciousness  all  that  the  race  knows,  or  that 
any  member-  of  the  race  knows.  But  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 

1  For  a  detailed  criticism  of  its  positions  as  applied  to  the  case  of  the  human 
mind,  see  the  author's  "  Philosophy  of  Mind.'* 


80  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

of  a  more  absurd  hypostasis  than  that  which  follows  from 
identifying  this  negative  conception  with  the  only  actual 
Being  of  things.  The  first  form  of  an  abstract  substantialism 
arises,  we  have  seen,  from  the  attempt  to  make  the  essence 
of  reality  consist  wholly  in  the  fact  of  our  undefined  believing, 
feeling,  or  positing  real  things  and  real  minds  to  be.  But 
this  second  abstraction  makes  the  essence  of  reality  to  consist 
in  the  negative  fact  that  we  do  not  know  all  of,  or  all  about, 
reality  in  general.  This  unknown,  or  unknowable,  is  then 
assumed  to  be  the  real  Ground,  or  Cause,  of  all  that  we  do 
know.  Surely  this  is  to  make  Chaos  and  Night  the  ancestors 
of  Jupiter  and  Minerva;  and  to  convert  metaphysics  into 
mythology. 

But  the  third  form  of  disregarding  the  meaning  of  our 
actual  experiences  with  things  identifies  Reality  throughout 
with  "  the  Idea."  Now  that  no  real  things  exist,  or  can  be 
conceived  of  as  existing,  without  taking  into  themselves 
potencies  which  must  be  admitted  as  ideal,  we  shall  subse- 
quently show  to  be  a  metaphysical  truth  of  the  most  funda- 
mental importance.  We  are  even  ready  to  put  this  truth  into 
the  following  preliminary  statement:  beings  that  do  not 
actualize  ideas  are  not  to  be  known,  or  in  any  way  admitted  to 
imagination  or  thought,  as  real.  Or,  in  other  words,  there  is 
no  reality  in  which  there  is  not,  as  essential  to  its  being  real, 
the  presence  or  immanence  of  ideas  to  be  recognized.  And, 
further,  the  one  Reality,  or  u  Unity  of  Reality,"  which  philos- 
ophy seeks,  must  also  be  the  Ground  of  human  ideals  as  well 
as  of  all  the  particular  realities  that  become  objects  of  human 
cognition.  But  just  as  we  ourselves,  even  in  our  small  meas- 
sure,  are  too  large  to  be  identified  with  our  own  ideas,  or 
with  the  total  stream  of  our  ideas,  or  with  any  one  else's 
ideas  about  us,  so  is  Reality  in  the  large  far  more  than  can 
be  identified  with  any  mere  idea. 

But  to  return  again  to  the  original  and  more  positive  points 
of  view:  Man's  conception  of  Reality  must  be  derived  from  his 


ANALYSIS  OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF  REALITY         81 

cognitive  experience  with  concrete  realities  —  subjected  to  reflec- 
tive treatment.  This  reflective  treatment,  so  often  as  it  seems 
about  to  end  in  mere  abstractions  that  arise  from  the  over- 
emphasis of  thinking  upon  some  particular  aspect  of  his  com- 
plex experience,  must  be  called  back  to  the  totality  of  that 
experience  again.  This  habitual  recall  will  keep  metaphysics 
firmly  rooted  in  the  knowledge  of  real  beings  and  of  actual 
events  and  relations,  while  permitting  it  to  be  thoughtful. 

Speculating  in  this  way  of  keeping  close  to  the  facts  of 
knowledge,  we  may  make  three  preliminary  observations 
about  the  valid  conception  of  reality.  First:  Reality  is 
always  primarily  a  fact ;  it  is,  first  of  all,  that  which  is  known 
as  being  in  (both  as  subject  and  as  object)  sense-perception 
and  self-consciousness.  In  every  single  cognitive  experience 
of  every  human  being,  reality  is  there ;  and  it  is  present  with 
all  that  power  to  compel  conviction  which  its  mere  presence 
brings,  and  with  all  that  wealth  of  content  with  which  it  offers 
itself  to  the  work  of  the  discriminating  and  constructive  in- 
tellect of  man.  In  discussing  the  "  primary  act  of  knowl- 
edge "  from  the  epistemological  point  of  view,  this  fundamental 
truth  has  been  repeatedly  enforced.  We  shall  return  to  it 
again. 

Second :  Reality  is  always  an  actor  or  agent.  Dead  and 
do-less  things  are  not.  We  may,  indeed,  make  a  sort  of 
abstraction  of  all  particular,  conceivable  forms  of  acting  and 
doing,  and  may  then  try  in  imagination  to  convert  this  bare 
potentiality  into  a  real  existence.  But  this  very  potentiality 
is  itself  like  a  slumbering  lion  —  acting  in  dream-life,  and 
ready,  at  the  first  prick  of  the  stimulus,  to  leap  forth  in  the 
full  strength  of  its  awakening.  It  is  the  half-consciousness 
of  this  truth  which  makes  much  of  the  physics  of  the  day  so 
obscure  and  provoking,  and  yet  so  tenacious  in  its  conception 
of  u  potential "  energy.  And  is  not  chemistry  virtually  com- 
pelled —  and  biology  as  well  —  to  pack  the  molecules  and 

atoms  full  of  sometimes  latent  and  sometimes  active  poten- 

6 


82  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

cies  ?  But  what  are  masses,  molecules,  atoms,  in  reality, 
when  they  have  wholly  ceased  to  be  actors  or  agents ;  when, 
in  respect  of  the  entire  sum  of  all  their  qualities  and  chang- 
ing relations,  they  are  merely  "  potential "  ?  Just  nothing 
at  all.  And  no  wonder  ;  for  if  this  true  "  core "  of  every 
reality  is  gone  from  any  particular  thing  or  mind,  that  so- 
called  thing  or  mind  is  left  quite  too  poor  and  helpless  even 
to  raise  its  voice  in  the  claim  to  be  "  one  among  many  "  in 
a  world  of  actual  transactions  between  real  existences. 

Third  :  Reality  is  always  connection  according  to  some 
law.  What  these  very  words  — "  connection  according  to 
some  law  "  —  mean  as  applied  to  every  real  being  and  to  every 
actual  transaction,  undoubtedly  needs  to  be  further  explained. 
But  our  statement  serves  in  a  preliminary,  though  somewhat 
vague  way,  to  mark  out  the  lines  for  a  metaphysical  system. 
Substance  and  attributes,  change  and  order,  many  and  one, 
unity  in  variety,  succession  and  the  permanent,  action  and 
reaction,  etc.  —  all  these  correlated  ways  of  considering  the 
answer  to  the  question,  What  is  it  really  to  be  ?  imply  the 
same  truth.  The  truth  expresses  the  fact  which  our  analysis 
has  already  emphasized :  Somehow,  every  being  succeeds  in 
harmonizing,  by  its  actual  existence,  all  the  essential  attributes 
and  potentialities  of  all  beings,  in  an  ideal  way. 

Where,  then,  shall  one  so  disposed  find  material  upon 
which  to  bestow  the  work  of  metaphysical  reflection  ?  Close 
by  at  hand,  and  beginning  with  anything,  no  matter  how 
seemingly  insignificant  or  mean.  For  every  real  thing  is  an 
example,  or  specimen,  of  the  all-inclusive  Reality.  But 
especially  by,  first  of  all,  arriving  at  terms  of  satisfactory 
understanding  with  one's  self.  For  it  is  written :  "  He  hath 
put  the  world  in  their  heart."  Does  this  mean,  however, 
that  I  am  myself,  in  my  poor  thoughts  and  conceptions,  the 
complete  and  satisfactory  measure  of  this  all-inclusive  Re- 
ality ?  By  no  means  so  ;  for  you  are  yourself  more  than 
your  own  mere  thoughts  or  conceptions ;  and  the  all-inclusive 


ANALYSIS   OF   THE   CONCEPTION  OF   REALITY          83 

Reality  embraces  you  as  a  real  and  significant,  but  partial, 
manifestation  of  its  Self.  What  shall  be  done  with  the  con- 
tradictions that  seem  at  once  to  emerge  from  the  dark  back- 
ground of  experience,  and  that  threaten  to  break  up  the 
harmonious  structure  of  the  conception  ?  Contradictions 
that  are  merely  in  our  conceptions  must  be  solved  by  an 
appeal  to  experience,  and  by  the  method  of  prolonged  and 
patient  reflection.  Apparent  contradictions,  that  are  solved 
in  actuality,  belong  to  the  very  essence  of  the  Reality  which 
thus  in  its  harmonious  working  presents  man  with  something 
quite  different  from  a  merely  logical  system  of  agreeable 
ideas  —  presents  him,  that  is,  with  the  complicated  problem 
of  a  World  that  is  a  Unity,  although  of  no  merely  logical 
kind. 


CHAPTER  IV 

EEALITY  AS  AN  ACTUAL   HARMONY  OF  THE   CATEGORIES 

HAVING  paid  tribute  at  the  throne  of  experience,  as  ruler 
over  the  thoughts  and  lives  both  of  common  folk  and  of  the 
devotees  of  science,  we  may  the  more  securely  consider  our 
problem,  as  it  is  embodied  in  more  abstract  terms.  It  is 
essential  to  any  valid  theory  of  reality  that  the  metaphysician 
shall  accept  certain  of  the  necessary  forms  of  cognition  in 
the  faith  that  they  reveal  the  actual  forms  of  things.  These 
necessary  forms  of  cognition,  which  an  analysis  of  cognitive 
experience  shows  to  be  the  accepted  forms  of  things,  are  the 
so-called  "  categories."  This  linguistic  usage  may  be  ac- 
cepted, for  want  of  any  other  single  word  which  seems 
equally  convenient  and  suggestive  of  the  truth.  How  many 
and  precisely  what  are  the  categories  (in  this  meaning  of  the 
word)  has  been  much  debated  by  both  logicians  and  meta- 
physicians. We  need  not  now  assume  to  enumerate  or  to 
discover  them  all.  It  is  well  known  how  Kant  thought  it 
possible  to  accomplish  this  preliminary  task  by  making  slight 
additions  to  the  Aristotelian  catalogue  of  the  necessary  kinds 
of  judgment.  Thus  this  great  critic  of  knowledge  was  led  to 
the  discovery  which,  almost  beyond  all  others  of  that  really 
penetrating  mind,  gave  satisfaction  to  his  instinct  for  "  ped- 
agogical primness."  Four  classes  ;  three  in  a  class ;  three 
times  four,  —  i.  e.,  twelve  —  and  no  more  ;  such  was  the 
demonstrable  list  of  the  universal  and  eternal  forms  of  the 
functioning  of  all  human  judgment  in  objective  cognition. 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  85 

There  were,  and  there  could  be,  in  Kant's  thought,  no  fewer 
and  no  more  than  twelve  categories. 

Nor  is  it  necessary  to  notice,  even  for  a  brief  criticism, 
the  attempts  of  Fichte  and  of  others  to  reduce  the  categories 
to  a  stricter  unity  ;  or  the  somewhat  shifting  significance 
which  has  been  given  to  this  and  corresponding  terms  dur- 
ing the  last  century  of  philosophical  discussion.  In  this 
discussion  the  colossal  attempt  of  Hegel  to  present  a  com- 
plete theory  of  reality  by  treating  the  necessary  forms  of 
thinking  as  a  living  self-evolution  is  undoubtedly  the  most 
significant  feature.  Our  aim  is  at  present  much  more  modest 
than  was  the  aim  of  these  three  great  thinkers.  We  wish  to 
use  the  word  in  the  meaning  which  has  already  been  indicated  : 
by  categories  we  understand  simply  those  essential  forms  of 
knowledge  under  which  men  perceive  and  conceive  of  all  they 
call  real.  And  concerning  them  we  wish  to  illustrate  and 
to  enforce  the  following  four  truths  :  First,  the  categories  are 
not  separable  either  in  thought  or  in  reality,  as  are  the  con- 
crete realities  themselves.  But,  second,  no  single  category 
is  recognizable  by  an  analysis  of  cognitive  experience  or  is 
statable  in  thought,  without  involving  the  recognition  and  the 
conception  of  every  other.  Nevertheless,  third,  no  category 
is  completely  resolvable  into  any  other.  Yet,  fourth  and 
finally,  all  the  categories  form  a  sort  of  interior  oneness  — 
a  system  which  appears  as  a  harmony  to  thought  and  is 
experienced  as  effecting  a  unity  in  the  world  of  reality. 

The  more  complete  proof  and  illustration  of  these  four 
propositions  respecting  the  nature  of  the  reality  known  to 
man  must  wait  for  the  detailed  discussion  of  the  following 
chapters.  The  fourth  proposition,  in  its  assertion  and  appli- 
cation of  the  principles  upon  which  harmony  can  be  estab- 
lished among  the  categories,  is  necessarily  the  final  task  of 
all  the  discussion.  But  now,  in  a  summary  and  intro- 
ductory way,  we  wish  to  sketch  a  doctrine  of  the  categories 
as  the  equivalent  of  a  system  of  metaphysics.  And  here  an 


86  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

effective  point  of  starting  may  be  taken  from  the  results  of 
the  analysis  which  has  already  been  suggested.  What,  then, 
is  it  that  any  real  thing  —  the  rose-bush  was  our  example  — 
is  known  to  be  ?  IT  —  this  particular  being  —  is  known  as 
having  a  number  of  perceivable  and  conceivable  qualities;  as 
existing  in  a  variety  of  relations ;  as  changing  in  time  and 
space ;  as  having  parts  and  being  measurable  and  numerable 
and  comparable  with  other  existences  under  similar  forms 
and  ends,  and  in  obedience  to  the  same  laws. 

Now  if  we  state  the  task  of  systematic  metaphysics  in  a 
more  abstract  way,  it  is  seen  to  concern  these  very  concep- 
tions which  every  particular  being  embodies  in  a  concrete  way. 
The  meaning  and  validity,  in  reality,  of  Being,  Quality,  Re- 
lation, Becoming  and  Change,  Time,  Space  and  Motion,  Force 
and  Causation,  Quantity  and  Measure,  Unity  and  Number, 
Forms  and  Laws,  —  and  whatever  other  conceptions  can 
vindicate  a  claim  to  belong  to  the  true  list  of  the  categories, 
—  are  the  particular  subjects  for  the  student  of  metaphysics 
to  consider.  They  are  the  essential  "  momenta  "  in  his  theory 
of  reality.  At  present  it  is  our  intention  to  maintain  the 
four  propositions  just  laid  down  as  true,  in  general,  of  these 
categories.  Being,  Quality,  Relation,  etc.,  to  the  end  of  the 
list,  are  conceptions  inseparable  in  thought  and  "  aspects " 
of  things  inseparable  in  reality ;  but  each  leads  to  the  rec- 
ognition of  every  other,  without,  however,  becoming  identi- 
cal with  any  other  ;  and  yet  they  all  show  an  interior  unity, 
such  as  is  actually  presented  to  cognition  in  the  world  of  real 
beings  and  of  actual  events.  And  if,  recognizing  these  truths 
as  fact,  we  ask  ourselves  how  they  are  made  possible  and  made 
full  of  meaning,  we  get  our  clue  to  the  true  theory  of  reality. 

That  the  categories  are  not  separable  in  reality,  as  the  con- 
crete realities  themselves  are,  has  already  been  shown  in  an 
analytic  way.  Every  object  of  knowledge,  whether  physical 
thing  or  mind,  in  order  that  it  may  be  known  to  be  a  (or  one) 
real  being,  must  be  regarded  as  somehow  separable  from  other 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  87 

beings,  no  matter  how  closely  allied  in  kind  or  intimately  re- 
lated in  fact.  This  stone  is  "  one  thing,"  because  it  can  be 
lifted  from  the  pile  upon  which  it  is  lying  and  conveyed  to 
another  place,  without  forfeiture  of  its  claim  to  identity  ;  and 
the  same  is  true  of  every  other  stone  in  the  pile.  In  the  case 
of  inorganic  objects  too  huge  and  unmanageable  for  human 
force  —  as,  for  example,  a  mountain  or  a  range  of  mountains 
—  the  discriminating  act  in  perception  or  in  conception 
performs  the  same  office  of  separation.  The  mental  act  of 
discrimination  makes  the  objects  to  be  individual  and  actual 
things,  on  account  of  their  perceived  or  imagined  separability 
from  other  things.  As  the  character  of  the  known  unity  — 
that  which  constitutes  it  a  real  being  —  changes,  the  char- 
acter of  the  separation  which  is  possible  in  the  case  of  any 
individual  example  of  such  unity  changes  also.  Broken  from 
the  tree,  the  bud,  the  twig,  the  branch,  is  still  for  a  time 
known  as  actually  entitled  to  the  name  which  has  garnered 
the  qualities  of  its  "  thing-hood,"  —  but  only  for  a  time. 
The  embryo  torn  prematurely  from  the  womb  of  the  mother 
is  still  an  embryo ;  but  it  is  soon  no  longer  an  embryo,  and 
it  becomes  almost  at  once  not  a  living  embryo.  In  the  case 
of  that  unique  kind  of  a  unity  in  reality  which  we  call  a 
mind,  the  essential  truth  of  the  principle  upon  which  we  are 
insisting  remains  unchanged.  Its  unity  as  a  mind,  and  its 
separableness  from  other  minds,  are  dependent  upon  its  own 
analytic  and  synthetic  activity.  But  the  actualizing  of  this 
particular  unity,  and  its  separableness  from  other  most  closely 
allied  unities,  has  other  "  stuff  "  to  handle  than  that  which  is 
known  in  the  case  of  any  inorganic  or  organic  thing. 

The  separableness  of  the  categories  in  reality  is  not  so. 
Stone,  and  bud,  and  embryo,  and  human  self,  are  all  alike 
actualizations  of  all  the  categories.  And  there  is  not  a  thing, 
or  a  single  one  mind,  of  which  this  is  not  also  true.  But  to 
show  this  in  detail  would  only  repeat  the  analysis  already 
sufficiently  expanded. 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

That  the  categories  are  not  independent  and  separable  in 
thought  appears  more  clearly  as  soon  as  we  attempt  to  discuss 
thoroughly  the  second  of  the  propositions  made  above.  No 
single  category  is  recognizable  in  cognitive  experience  or 
statable  in  thought,  without  leading  to  the  recognition  and 
the  conception  of  every  other  category.  The  path  is  open 
between  the  categories.  The  Hegelian  dialectic  proposed 
to  start  from  the  simpler  and  more  fundamental  conceptions, 
and  by  moving  forward  on  the  path  of  a  spiral,  each  suc- 
cessive part  of  which  has  an  enlarging  diameter,  reach  the 
heights  of  the  Absolute  Idea.  But  like  every  other  system  of 
evolution,  when  considered  from  the  ontological  point  of  view, 
this  dialectic  only  evolved  at  the  end  of  its  thought-movement 
ideas  that  were  involved  at  the  very  beginning. 

Let  this  truth  be  enforced  by  taking  as  a  point  of  starting 
any  one  of  the  so-called  categories  :  Being  in  Space,  shall  we 
say?  But  by  "  being  in  space"  —  really  and  not  merely  in 
imagination  —  we  must  understand  some  particular  Thing  oc- 
cupying some  particular  portion  of  space.  For  it  is  not  space 
as  a  mere  abstraction,  which  is  to  be  considered,  but  space  as 
a  category,  —  that  is,  space  as  it  is  known,  in  application  to- 
real  things.  But  nothing  can  be  known  or  thought  of  as  "  in 
space,"  that  does  not  define  itself  as  "  here "  rather  than 
"there."  Its  being  at  all  in  space,  as  all  actual  things 
necessarily  are,  involves  its  particularity  ;  to  be  nowhere  in 
particular  in  space,  but  everywhere  in  general,  or  to  be  "  all 
over  "  space,  is  to  be  unknowable  and  unthinkable  in  terms  of 
this  category.  But  this  particularity  which  every  actual 
thing  has,  as  being  in  space,  is  necessarily,  in  part,  conceived 
of  as  a  relation  to  other  beings  that  are  also  in  space.  Rela- 
tion in  space,  as  belonging  to  real  beings,  is  neither  cognizable 
nor  thinkable  without  implying  movableness  in  space  as  an 
actual  qualification  of  things.  This  is  here,  and  that  is  there; 
but  to  be  here,  when  another  thing  is  there,  is  to  be  related  to 
that  other  thing  —  "  in  space." 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  89 

What  more,  however,  is  involved  in  being  a  particular  real 
thing  here  and  yet  actually  related  to  another  thing  over  there  — 
both  things  "  being  in  space,"  and  having  movableness  in  space  ? 
At  least  as  much  as  is  involved  in  the  being  of  the  same  par- 
ticular thing,  irrespective  of  its  position  and  movableness  in 
space.  That  is,  its  particularity  consists,  for  our  knowledge 
and  for  our  thought,  in  the  possession  of  an  assortment  of 
qualities  which  it  shares  in  common  with  other  things,  but 
with  a  peculiar  or  unique  form  of  combination.  This  partic- 
ularizing of  itself  by  having  a  peculiar  combination  of 
qualities  is  the  feature  essential  for  its  being  known  as  just 
this  and  no  other  particular  thing,  wherever  situated  in  space, 
and  however  related  to  other  things.  But  qualities  cannot  be 
known  or  thought,  in  connection  with  relations  in  space, 
without  introducing  the  conception  of  other  forms  than  the 
spatial  form  of  relation.  The  possession  of  any  particular 
quality  makes  necessary  the  introduction  of  a  new  example 
of  the  category  of  relation.  Considered  as  having  color,  for 
example,  all  things  are  related  under  the  quality  of  color  ; 
considered  as  having  weight,  under  the  relation  of  weight ; 
and  so  on. 

Being  related  and  being  movable,  under  the  category  of 
space,  is  known  and  thought  of  only  as  the  validity  of  the 
category  of  change  is  recognized.  Thus  motion  is  custom* 
arily  described  as  "  change  of  place."  The  path  open  between 
the  categories  leads  us  from  the  thought  of  being  related  in 
space  to  the  thought  of  change.  But  the  particularity  of 
things  —  the  being,  each  one,  this  rather  than  some  other  — 
cannot  be  maintained  if  the  category  of  change  is  limited  to 
change  of  place.  For  any  one  thing,  change  of  place  involves 
a  change  of  relations.  When  any  one  thing  has  changed  its 
place,  it  can  no  longer  be  thought  of  as  maintaining  precisely 
all  the  old  relations.  But  many  qualities  of  things,  at  least, 
are  so  dependent  upon  the  relations  in  space  of  the  things 
having  the  qualities,  that  change  in  the  qualities  is  the  neces- 


90  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

saiy  sequence  of  a  change  of  their  relations  in  space.  Points 
of  view  do  really  determine  changes  in  the  qualities  of  things. 
Now  if  any  objector  maintains  that  while  this  is  true  of 
appearances,  it  is  far  from  being  true  of  realities,  we  must 
recall  him  to  the  line  of  argument  which  we  are  following. 
We  are  not  speaking  of  change  as  an  abstract  and  mystical 
conception  having  no  reference  to  men's  experience  with 
realities ;  but  of  the  category  of  change  as  men  know  it  to  be 
applied  to  actual  things,  in  terms  of  this  experience.  And 
we  repeat  that,  considered  in  this  way,  the  conception  of  a 
real  thing  changing  its  relations  to  other  real  things  in  space 
necessarily  involves  certain  changes  in  the  qualities  of  that 
thing.  Such  a  change  forces  upon  our  thought  the  being  of 
the  thing  as  holding  a  different  set  of  relations  to  the  system 
of  things.  The  thing  that  changes  its  position  in  space 
must  always  play  another  part  from  that  which  it  formerly 
played  within  the  world-system.  And  this  it  cannot  do 
without  developing,  so  to  speak,  certain  new  qualities  or  ways 
of  asserting  its  own  continued  existence. 

The  truth  of  the  statements  just  made  will  be  enforced  and 
expanded,  if  we  return  to  them  by  a  somewhat  different  path. 
This  may  be  done  the  more  easily  by  introducing  a  substitute 
for  one  of  the  phrases  which  has  already  been  frequently 
employed.  "  To  be  (really)  in  space  "  and  "  to  occupy  space  " 
•are  not,  perhaps,  precisely  identical  thoughts.  But  if  these 
two  thoughts  are  referred  to  the  actual  cognitive  experi- 
ence in  which  they  arose,  the  former  is  seen  to  involve  the  lat- 
ter. Really  to  be  in  space  is  not  merely  to  place  the  idea,  or 
conception,  of  some  particular  thing  ideally  inside  of  an 
abstraction  called  "  empty  space."  The  inclusion  and  exclu- 
sion which  men  intend  by  such  terms  are  no  merely  logical 
affair.  When  plain  but  serious  people  ask  us,  in  somewhat 
vulgar  English,  whether  we  have  any  "  idea  "  that  so  many 
men  can  be  got  into  a  room  of  such  a  size,  they  are  not 
.interested  in  a  merely  logical  or  grammatical  puzzle.  What 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  91 

they  wish  to  know  is  whether,  when  the  test  of  fact  conies, 
such  a  number  of  solid,  "  non-squeezable  "  bodies  will,  under 
the  appropriate  actual  relations,  occupy  thus  much  or  more 
of  space.  For  practical  purposes,  each  thing  is  "  in  the 
space  "  which  it  occupies.  If  it  can  in  any  way  be  made  to 
occupy  more  or  less  of  space,  then  it  becomes  larger  or 
smaller  in  space.  Whatever  ceases  to  occupy  any  space, 
either  for  perception  or  for  conception,  that  ceases  to  exist  in 
space.  Nor  is  the  propriety  of  substituting  "the  occupying  of 
space  "  for  the  "  really  being  in  space  "  spoiled  by  any  of  the 
discoveries  of  physics  and  chemistry  respecting  the  porous- 
ness of  masses,  or  the  separateness  of  the  atoms  within  the 
molecule,  or  the  universal  diffusion  of  ether  within  the  seem- 
ingly space-filling  portions  of  ordinary  matter.  Here,  then, 
undoubtedly  lies  open  one  path  which  leads  us  straight  to 
another  nest-full  of  categories.  These  are  such  as  men 
express  by  the  words  "  activity,"  "  force,"  "  causation,"  etc. 
To  occupy  space  is  to  resist  force  with  force ;  it  is  for  the 
being  A  to  keep  the  being  E  out  of  the  place  X. 

Let  it  be  noticed,  however,  that  we  have  long  since  passed 
over  divergences  in  the  path  by  which  such  categories  as  those 
of  quantity  and  measure,  unity  and  number,  might  have  been 
reached.  Really  to  be  a  particular  thing  in  space  is  necessa- 
rily to  have  magnitude  and  to  be  capable  of  having  some  stand- 
ard of  magnitude  applied  as  an  actual  event,  in  conception 
if  not  otherwise,  with  an  accompanying  process  of  numbering 
the  successive  applications  of  the  standard.  To  be  a  thing 
is  an  impossibility,  either  to  cognitive  experience  or  to 
thought,  without  a  certain  measurable  extension  in  space ; 
and  also  without  implying  the  actuality  of  numerical  rela- 
tions to  other  things.  Motion  also  is  impossible,  either  as 
an  event  actually  perceived  or  as  an  occurrence  rendered  pos- 
sible barely  to  thought,  without  implying  the  categories  of 
quantity  and  number.  Indeed,  it  is  this  necessity  of  asking 
the  questions,  How  much  ?  and  How  many  ?  which  compels 


92  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  physicist  to  attribute  "mass"  to  all  matter  as  its  most 
essential  and  universal  characteristic. 

How  conformity  to  law  and,  so  to  speak,  compliance  with 
ideal  ends,  on  the  part  of  the  changes  and  the  enduring  rela- 
tions and  qualities  of  every  thing,  are  necessary  "  momenta " 
in  the  very  being  of  that  thing,  it  requires  a  more  special 
analysis  to  show.  This  analysis  will  be  undertaken  at  the 
proper  time.  It  is  enough  now  to  remark  that  while  change 
is  necessary  to  the  being  of  any  particular  thing,  unrestricted 
change  destroys  the  very  conception  of  a  real  thing ;  change 
without  limit  amounts  to  an  annihilation  of  the  real  being 
subject  to  such  change.  Any  being,  J.,  may  retain  its  claim 
to  reality  as  some  particular  thing,  while  it  passes  through 
a  succession  of  more  or  less  important  modifications,  such  as 
AI,  Az,  ASy  .  .  .  AD ;  and  there  is  nothing  but  experience  to 
tell  us  how  far  An  may  be  a  departure  from  A19  without  de- 
stroying the  very  existence  of  A.  But  no  thing  can  maintain 
its  claim  to  continued  existence  under  the  name  A,  if  it  begins 
to  run  through  such  a  series  of  changes  as  are  indicated  by 
£19  B^  Bs,  .  .  .  Bn.  Here,  then,  is  plainly  the  conception  of 
law  and  of  final  purpose  at  the  very  heart  of  every  reality. 

That  time  is  a  form  of  cognition  which  is  essential  to  the 
very  construction  of  all  concrete  realities  admits  of  no  doubt. 
The  path  to  this  category,  too,  has  lain  open  at  every  step  in 
the  course  we  have  been  traversing.  Really  to  be  in  space 
each  thing  must  vindicate  its  claim  by  occupying  space 
through  a  certain  amount  of  time.  Actual  movement  in 
space  can  neither  be  known  nor  thought  except  as  involving 
the  category  of  time.  Things  that  move,  or  are  conceived  of 
as  movable,  must  be  now  here,  and  afterward  there.  The 
popular  definition  of  movement  as  change  of  position  empha- 
sizes a  similar  necessity  to  thought.  And,  indeed,  the  cate- 
gory of  change  itself  —  whether  of  position,  or  of  relation,  or 
of  quality,  or  of  state  —  implicates  the  reality  of  time  in  such 
manner  that  the  first  beginnings  of  a  frame-work  for  the  former 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  93 

category  require,  for  their  interpretation,  the  admission  of 
the  validity  of  the  latter  category.  Change  that  is  not  really 
in  time  is  empty  abstraction  ;  actual  change  can  take  place 
only  in  time.  What  is  meant  by  "  being  really  in  time  "  is  a 
problem  which  demands  a  metaphysical  solution  ;  but  whatever 
is  meant,  just  that,  at  the  least,  is  an  indispensable  condition  of 
all  actual  change.  Neither  can  men  know  the  qualities  and 
relations  of  things,  whether  the  more  transient  or  the  more 
permanent,  without  conforming  to  the  category  of  time.  The 
path  to  this  category  lies  open  at  every  step  for  the  mind 
which  seeks  a  systematic  doctrine  of  the  categories. 

But  the  same  truth  might  be  as  well  illustrated  by  taking 
any  other  category  as  our  point  of  starting.  From  whatever 
one  of  the  various  points  of  view  we  begin  the  survey  of  the 
corresponding  aspect  of  reality,  what  is  seen  from  this  point 
cannot  be  exhaustively  described  without  surveying  all  the 
aspects  of  reality.  In  the  actual  growth  of  knowledge,  both 
for  the  individual  and  for  the  race,  this  observation  proves 
itself  true.  The  different  pursuits  of  the  individual,  and  the 
growth  of  the  different  sciences  in  the  history  of  the  race, 
furnish  grounds  of  selection  among  the  possible  points  of 
view.  For  the  mathematician  or  the  tradesman,  the  cate- 
gories of  quantity  and  of  number  are  most  impressive.  For 
the  student  of  physics  and  chemistry,  for  the  machinist  and 
manufacturer,  these  categories  with  the  added  conceptions  of 
causation  and  force.  But  in  their  treatment  of  concrete  real- 
ities both  mathematics  and  physics  are  compelled  to  fix  their 
eyes  on  the  actual  relations  and  qualities  of  things  in  time 
and  in  space.  While  law  and  final  purpose,  "  ruling  over  " 
and  "  dwelling  in  "  things,  are  of  eternal,  practical  and  ethical 
interest  to  all  men.  If,  then,  geometrical  figures  be  employed 
in  illustration  —  the  system  of  the  categories  is  not  to  be 
compared  to  a  thin  straight  line,  or  to  a  curve  returning  con- 
tinuously upon  itself,  and  running  from  pure  Being  to  an  all- 
comprehensive  Idea.  Neither  is  it  a  pyramid  or  cone,  erected 


94  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

and  brought  to  a  condition  of  equilibrium  when  resting  upon 
either  end.  It  is  rather  a  constantly  revolving,  perfect,  and 
transparent  sphere.  Whichever  aspect  of  this  sphere  is  first 
presented  to  the  eye,  one  enjoys  the  opportunity  of  seeing,  not 
only  what  this  aspect  is,  but  how  this  particular  aspect  stands 
related  to  the  entire  sphere.  The  Hegelian  path,  with  its 
heavy,  monotonous  "  tit-tat-too  "  tread,  from  Seyn,  through 
Wesen,  to  Idee,  —  taking  Daseyn,  Fursichseyn,  Quantitdt, 
Maas,  etc.,  etc.,  in  regular  order  by  the  way,  —  is  by  no 
means  the  only  path  open  between  the  categories.  Every  one 
of  these  conceptions  leads  to  every  other,  obviously  enough,  if 
not  with  an  equal  directness.  And  no  one  of  them  alone 
presents  the  mind  with  a  valid  and  complete  picture  of  the 
reality  of  even  the  meanest  thing.  Nor  can  any  one  of  them 
be  deified,  as  it  were,  and  made  the  equal  of  the  All-Reality. 
And  yet  the  third  of  the  propositions  already  laid  down 
is  equally  true  of  the  categories.  No  one  of  them  is 
analyzable  into  any  other.  If  a  separable  and  independent 
existence  or  application  to  the  whole  of  human  cognitive 
experience  must  be  denied  for  each,  on  the  contrary  a  sort 
of  independence  must  be  maintained  for  each.  To  uphold 
this  claim  successfully  requires  such  detailed  discussion  as  it 
belongs  to  the  different  chapters  of  metaphysical  system  to 
give.  But  the  nature  of  the  discussion  is  itself  a  sufficient 
proof  of  the  general  truthfulness  of  the  proposition.  For 
example,  it  has  already  been  shown  that  we  cannot  interpret 
satisfactorily  the  cognitive  experience  of  men  with  any  par- 
ticular thing  as  "  really  in  space "  without  recognizing  also 
the  fact  that  the  same  thing  is  known  as  "  occupying  space." 
And  thus  the  path  lies  open  from  the  category  of  Space  to  the 
category  of  Force.  But  force  cannot  be  resolved  into  space, 
or  into  motion  or  change.  Our  thought  puts  this  conception 
of  force,  as  exerted  by  the  thing,  into  the  very  nature  of  that 
thing  as  affording  the  explanation  of  the  phenomenon  called 
"  occupying  space."  The  cause  of  the  things  occupying  so 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  95 

much  of  space  is  the  character  and  amount  of  the  force  of 
the  thing.  The  cause  of  the  thing's  movement  or  arrest  of 
movement  in  space,  and  the  cause  of  all  its  other  changes 
of  states  and  relations,  is  some  kind  of  force,  somewhere 
seated,  either  within  this  thing  or  within  other  things.  Thus 
does  the  mind  work  around  from  category  to  category,  as  its 
experience  assumes  the  different  possible  points  of  view. 
Force — that  is  to  say  —  is  "  in  "  the  relation,  "of"  cause, 
"to"  motion,  "in"  space,  and  "in"  time,  and  "of"  every 
other  change  "in"  the  qualities  "of"  any  being.  But  each 
one  of  these  prepositions  ("  in,"  "  to,"  and  "  of  ")  is  designed 
to  mark  some  sort  of  a  relation ;  and  each  of  the  relations 
which  each  of  the  prepositions  marks  implies  the  application 
of  the  category  of  force  to  the  solution  of  the  problem,  What 
is  it  really  to  be  ?  in  a  somewhat  different  way. 

Let  the  effort  be  made,  however,  to  resolve  the  category 
of  force  into  any  of  the  other  categories,  to  which  it  seems 
itself  related  in  such  manifold  curious  ways,  and  how  un- 
satisfactory the  result!  This  is,  indeed,  an  attempt  which 
has  often  been  made  in  the  past,  and  which  is  frequent  and 
fascinating  enough  at  the  present  time,  both  among  physi- 
cists and  among  metaphysicians.  It  will  receive  the  detailed 
criticism  which  it  invites,  at  the  proper  time.  We  are  fre- 
quently presented  with  such  conceptions  of  individual  realities 
as  that,  for  example,  at  which  Uphues1  arrives :"  Things 
consist  for  us,"  says  this  author,  "  of  the  sum  of  the  proper- 
ties which  we  learn  to  know  by  the  senses,  that  with  approxi- 
mate regularity  occur  at  the  same  time  with  each,  and  appear 
as  belonging  together.  They  are  the  constituents  of  things 
(Bestandtheile),  because  of  this  regular  recurrence  and  be- 
longing together."  The  conception  of  force,  as  well  as  the 
conception  of  essence,  in  its  application  to  the  reality  of 
things,  Uphues  then  sets  aside  as  barren  and  useless.  Now 
in  this  way  one  may  doubtless  arrive  at  a  descriptive  cata- 

1  Psychologic  des  Erkennens,  p.  2. 


96  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

logue  of  those  sensuous  qualifications  which  any  particular 
thing  has  for  us ;  and  which  enable  us  in  terms  of  sense- 
perception  to  define  what  is  that  particular  thing  as  capable 
of  being  sensuously  distinguished  from  other  things.  But  to 
constitute  such  a  "  consistency "  of  things,  by  exclusion 
of  the  conception  of  force,  is  to  cut  the  very  heart  out  of  the 
reality  of  the  thing.  For  it  is  only  as  some  sort  of  a  centre 
of  being,  on  which  may  be  concentrated  the  active  energies 
of  other  things,  and  from  which  active  energies  may  proceed 
to  terminate  upon  other  things,  that  any  particular  object 
indicates  to  thought  its  claim  to  reality.  To  be  sure,  all 
language  like  that  just  used  is  figurative ;  and  the  real  trans- 
actions that  correspond  to  it  need  further  to  be  investigated. 
But  its  figurative  use  is  at  least  necessary  in  order  faithfully 
to  express  all  that  every  particular  real  thing  is  known  to 
be.  Nay  !  its  figurative  use  reminds  us  of  the  very  gist  of 
the  reality  which  each  particular  thing  is  known  to  possess. 

The  vacillation  of  modern  physics  upon  the  point  of  this 
category  is  an  instructive  spectacle  for  the  metaphysician.  If 
it  takes  place  in  a  controversial  way,  it  shows  that  the  thrust 
of  the  spear  has  reached  a  vital  part ;  and  the  whole  body  of 
science  is  thus  set  quivering  with  the  deadly  wound.  In  fact, 
one  fundamental  form  of  modern  physical  theory  would  re- 
duce all  our  most  ultimate  cognitions  of  matter  and  of  physical 
changes  to  terms  of  force.  But  another  form  of  physical 
theory  will  hear  nothing  of  force ;  it  would  willingly  exclude 
any  such  entity  or  essential  manifestation  of  an  entity  from 
the  valid  conceptions  of  modern  science.  We  will  not  just 
now  press  the  questions  :  What,  in  the  first  case,  becomes  of 
science  as  dealing  with  concrete  realities  ?  or,  What,  in  the 
second  case,  becomes  of  science  as  having  to  do  with  causes  ? 
We  will  only  call  attention  to  the  fact  that,  with  the  banish- 
ment of  this  conception,  all  the  genuine  dynamics  (not  to  say 
the  dynamite)  is  gone  from  man's  view  of  the  physical  uni- 
verse. Things  become  pale  shadows,  trooping  here  and  there 


HARMONT  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  97 

in  a  fleshless  and  ghostly  fashion,  —  all  life  departed  from 
them.  When  the  category  of  Force,  and  its  allied  category 
of  Cause,  leaves  the  world  of  reality,  how  do  its  objects  differ 
from  the  most  unreal  of  mental  images,  from  the  uncontrolled 
mental  train  of  dream-life  ? 

On  the  other  hand,  we  find   ourselves  equally  unable  to 
resolve  any  of  the   other  categories  into  the  conception  of 
force.     No  amount  or  kind  of  mere  force  could  produce  either 
time  or  space,  as  these  two  conceptions  are  found  to  belong 
to  things  in  our  experience  with  them.     I  may  think,  indeed, 
of  the  actual  things,  or  of  the  Absolute  Being  which  I  con- 
ceive to  be  the  Ground  of  things,  as  the  force  or  cause  that 
compels  me  to  cognize  external  objects  under  space-form  and 
time-form.     I  may  find  myself  induced  to  acknowledge  that 
the  ultimate  cause  of  my  apprehension  and  thought  of   all 
things  as  spatial  and  temporal  is  the   influence  —  or  force 
exercised  —  upon  me,  of  the  World-Ground.     Or,  to  adopt  for 
the  moment  the  Berkeleyan  hypothesis :  the  being  of  things  — 
all  the  being  they  have  as  things  —  is  their  being  perceived 
by  me  and  by  other  finite  minds ;  but  their  being  in  reality  is 
their  being  willed  by  God,  in  an  orderly  way,  to  arise  in  my 
consciousness  and  in  the  consciousness  of  other  men.     But 
this   appendix  —  "  in   an   orderly  way  "  —  introduces  some- 
thing more  than  mere  force  ;  and  it  defines  vaguely  the  terms 
under  which  must  fall,  and  actually  do  fall,  all  my  valid  cog- 
nitions of  real  things.    Nor  is  this  simply  "  an  orderly  way  ; " 
—  as  though  any  kind  of  an  orderly  way  would  equally  well 
answer  to  my  experience.     There  is  one  kind  of  an  orderly 
way,  which  is  time ;  and  another  kind,  which  is  space  ;  and 
there  are  as  many  kinds  of  orderly  ways  as  there  are  so-called 
laws,  maintaining  themselves   over   or  between  things,  and 
thus  keeping  the  things  in  order.     From  our  present  human 
point  of  view,  these  ways  are  innumerable.     But  those  par- 
ticular orderly  ways  which  men  call  "  space  "  and  "  time " 
stand  in  very  different  relations  to  our  cognitive  experience 


98  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

from  the  relations  in  which  stand  the  many  physical,  chemi- 
cal, and  biological  ways  of  the  ordering  of  things.  Space  and 
Time  are  categories ;  and  the  laws  of  gravitation,  or  of  chemi- 
cal equivalence,  or  of  biogenesis  and  development,  are  not 
categories.  As  categories,  space  and  time  maintain  a  peculiar 
kind  of  independence, —  suffering  themselves  to  serve  as  paths 
along  which  we  may  pass  from  one  category  to  another,  and 
yet  refusing  to  be  absorbed  in  any  of  the  other  categories. 

While,  however,  all  the  categories  correspond  in  a  general 
way  to  the  three  propositions  made  above,  there  exist  many 
curious  subordinate  interrelations  amongst  them.  To  use 
again  the  figure  of  speech  which  has  already  served  the  same 
purpose :  The  path  is  indeed  open  between  all  the  categories, 
and  the  course  of  reflective  thinking  permits  and  requires  free 
movement  from  each  one  to  every  other ;  but  the  path  is  not 
equally  direct  between  them  all.  These  fundamental  concep- 
tions divide  themselves  into  certain  pairs  and  groups  which 
seem  to  be  more  nearly  contiguous,  one  to  another.  An  his- 
torical study  of  the  whole  subject  would  show  how  both  a 
naive  and  a  critical  ontology  have  found  themselves  compelled 
to  consider  its  problems  in  accordance  with  this  truth.  The 
popular  thinking  connects  together  the  conceptions  of  sub- 
stance and  attribute,  of  magnitude  and  number,  of  force  and 
cause,  of  space  and  time,  of  law,  or  a  certain  orderliness  in 
behavior,  and  of  an  end  to  be  reached  by  obeying  the  law. 

The  "  Critique "  of  all  cognitive  faculty,  which  in  its 
author's  profound  judgment  would  so  describe  and  arrange 
the  categories  as  that  this  work  would  need  henceforth  no 
supplementing  or  amendment,  divided  them  into  two  great 
groups.  In  the  first  of  these  groups  were  space  and  time,  the 
a  priori  forms  of  all  presentative  knowledge  (or  sensuous 
"  awareness ")  of  things  ;  and  the  critical  doctrine  of  such 
knowledge  was  summarily  dismissed  with  a  few  pages,  full 
of  uncriticized  assumptions  on  so-called  "Transcendental 
^Esthetic."  The  other  main  group  comprised  the  twelve  re- 


HARMONY  OF  THE   CATEGORIES  99 

maining  categories ;  and  these  are  the  a  priori  forms  of  all 
those  judgments  about  things  which  constitute  the  sum-total 
of  experience.  They  fall  naturally  into  four  subordinate 
groups  of  three  in  each  group.  The  exposition  and  justifica- 
tion of  this  system  gave  the  critic,  according  to  his  own  con- 
fession, a  great  amount  of  trouble ;  and  the  manner  of  its 
being  accomplished  has  given  his  readers  no  little  trouble 
ever  since.  But  the  important  truth  now  to  be  noticed  is  that, 
somehow,  peculiar  and  curious  interrelations  of  a  more  or  less 
orderly  kind  are  always  found  by  the  analyst  to  exist  among 
the  categories.  Kant  himself,  after  all  his  labor  to  answer 
the  question  of  right  (Quid  juris?*)  and  so  afford  a  satisfac- 
tory "  Deduction  of  the  Categories,"  does  not  even  raise  in 
satisfactory  form  the  most  fundamental  and  interesting  criti- 
cal question  of  all.  Why  should  these  conceptions  divide 
themselves  up  in  this  particular  way,  unless  some  deeper-lying 
principle  belonging  to  the  world  of  reality  can  be  discovered 
to  account  for  the  division  itself  ?  On  the  psychological  and 
epistemological  side,  the  reasons  for  any  such  pairing,  or 
grouping,  of  the  fundamental  forms  of  cognition  must  be 
found  in  the  very  nature  of  cognition  itself.  But  regarded 
from  the  more  distinctively  metaphysical  side,  the  reasons  must 
lie  deep  in  the  very  nature  of  Reality. 

Since  we  have  now  been  led  to  thoughts  which  depend  upon 
combining  the  third  and  the  fourth  of  our  general  propositions 
respecting  all  the  categories,  they  may  fitly  be  illustrated 
by  an  example  or  two.  Either  one  of  the  several  examples 
already  enumerated  will  serve  to  illustrate  this  singularity 
in  the  structure  of  human  knowledge.  Undoubtedly,  mag- 
nitude and  number  constitute  a  sort  of  pair  among  the 
categories  which  sustain  certain  closer  than  the  customary 
relations  to  each  other.  Neither  precise  knowledge  nor  logical 
thought  about  things  in  terms  of  quantity  is  possible  without 
immediately  introducing  terms  of  number,  as  a  sort  of  twin 
vehicle  to  the  necessary  mental  processes.  How  large  ?  is  a 


100  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

question  which  can  be  definitively  answered  only  in  terms  that 
imply  counting.  But,  in  turn,  the  question,  How  many  ?  im- 
plies some  sort  of  measurement  and  consequent  delimitation  of 
each  thing  which  offers  itself  to  be  counted  in  making  up  the 
answer  to  every  such  question.  The  psychological  explana- 
tion of  this  "  pairing "  of  the  categories  of  quantity  and 
number  is  undoubtedly  to  be  found  in  the  actual  use  made 
of  the  faculties  in  measuring  and  numbering  things.  Yague 
notions  of  larger  and  smaller,  of  difference  and  sameness  of 
direction  do  not  indeed  depend  upon  developing  the  power 
of  "  enumeration."  But  precise  measurement  of  things, 
whether  for  practical  or  for  theoretical  purposes,  is  impossible 
without  counting ;  nor  can  we  count  things  without  some,  at 
least,  rough  and  preliminary  measurement  of  them.  If  this 
fact  of  experience  is  to  enter  into  a  theory  of  reality,  it  must 
appear  that  there  is  something  in  the  nature  of  things  which 
serves  as  a  ground,  or  warrant,  for  the  close  connection 
of  these  two  categories  in  man's  cognitions  and  in  all  his 
reflective  thinking.  That  is,  it  must  be  shown  that  the  meas- 
ureableness  and  numberableness  of  concrete  realities  are 
interdependent,  and  yet  not  identical,  aspects  of  things.  And 
it  needs  finally  to  appear  that  the  Unity  which  a  systematic 
metaphysics  discovers  in  Reality  is,  so  to  speak,  the  bond  which 
brings  these  categories  into  their  actual  close  relation. 

Another  example  of  essentially  the  same  truth  may  be 
found  by  the  critical  analysis  of  the  allied  conceptions,  space 
and  time.  These  two  so-called  categories  are  not,  indeed,  a 
"  pair  "  in  the  same  sense  in  which  this  word  may  be  figura- 
tively applied  to  quantity  and  number.  But  analysis  of  the 
cognitive  experience  which  actually  connects  them  discovers 
many  curious  relations  between  them.  How  the  mind  finds 
itself  compelled  to  make  use  of  terms  that  primarily  apply 
to  space  relations  in  order  to  express  relations  of  time,  is  too 
well  known  to  need  detailed  illustration.  Yet  "  contiguity," 
"  extension,"  "  equality,"  "  movement,"  etc.,  as  applied  to 


HARMONY  OF   THE  CATEGORIES  101 

temporal  relations,  stand  for  conceptions  which  contradict 
the  most  important  characteristics  of  the  same  terms  as 
applied  to  spatial  relations.  You  can  neither  actually,  nor  in 
thought,  bring  two  times  that  are  separate  from  each  other 
into  contiguity  ;  nor  can  you  conceive  of  them  as  actually 
moved  and  superimposed  so  as  to  demonstrate  their  equality. 
The  line  of  time  violates  the  most  important  condition  which 
is  observed  by  every  line  drawn  in  space :  its  successive  parts 
do  not  "  stay  put ; "  since  their  very  essence  is  that  they  shall 
succeed  each  other  in  their  real  existence  —  whatever  the 
nature  of  this  existence  may  be  found  to  be.  On  the  other 
hand,  neither  experience  nor  thought  can  present  things  as 
contiguous,  or  as  extended,  or  as  moved  in  space  so  as  to 
show  their  equality  or  inequality,  without  dependence  upon 
the  category  of  time.  All  occupying  of  space,  or  change  in 
space,  must  be  known  as  an  enduring  or  a  succession,  in  time. 

Like  a  brooding  and  fostering  nurse,  or  rather  like  a  pro- 
lific mother,  does  Relation  itself  stand  related  to  all  the  other 
categories.  No  other  one  of  these  forms  of  cognition  appears 
as  so  ubiquitous  in  presence,  and  yet  variable  in  character. 
Nothing  static  is  there  about  actual  relations  ;  although  re- 
lations themselves  are  to  be  conceived  of  only  in  case  we  can, 
for  a  moment  at  least,  fix  and  render  stationary  the  ceaseless 
changes  of  qualities,  states,  and  positions  in  space.  Of  this 
experience  the  psychological  genesis  is  undoubtedly  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  knowing  itself,  on  its  intellectual  side, 
is  essentially  a  relating  activity.  More  on  this  point,  how- 
ever, would  be  to  anticipate  what  must  be  said  later. 

The  significance  for  any  consistent  theory  of  reality  of  such 
curious  interrelations  amongst  the  fundamental  forms  of 
knowledge  has  received  far  too  little  attention  hitherto  by 
students  of  systematic  metaphysics.  It  is  well  enough, 
indeed,  for  the  students  of  the  positive  sciences  to  take  these 
interrelations  for  granted.  But  what  do  they  have  to  tell  us 
about  the  nature  of  the  World  as  a  Unity  of  concrete  realities 


102  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

constituted  under  terms  of  an  order  so  mysterious  and  exciting 
to  philosophical  reflection?  What  sort  of  a  Reality  must  that 
be  which  can  alone  harmonize  these  differences  and  seeming 
oppositions  among  the  categories,  while  allowing  to  each  its 
independence  and  its  proper  place  within  the  unique  system  ? 
It  is  the  answer  to  this  inquiry  which  we  hope  to  furnish  by 
subsequent  detailed  discussions. 

The  partial  unification  of  the  categories,  as  pairs  or  subor- 
dinate groups,  fitly  leads  our  consideration  to  the  fourth  prop- 
osition. All  the  categories,  when  considered  as  forms  of 
knowledge,  constitute  a  sort  of  interior  unity ;  and  when 
considered  as  forms  of  the  existence  of  things,  they  demand 
some  theory  which  will  expound  the  Nature  of  Reality  as  a 
harmonious  and  unitary  system.  On  its  epistemological  side, 
no  one  ever  saw  this  truth  more  clearly,  or  labored  more  dili- 
gently to  expose  and  defend  it,  than  did  Kant.  But  since 
his  systematic  metaphysics  was  simply  an  orderly  exposition 
of  the  categories  regarded  as  mere  forms  of  cognition,  his 
theory  of  reality  could  not  be  founded  in  man's  total  experi- 
ence, but  only  in  man's  practical  needs.  It  was  ready-made 
for  one  who  would  save  his  faith,  by  agreeing  to  surrender  the 
hope  of  knowledge.  For  us  the  actual  unity  which  the  forms 
of  all  men's  cognitive  experience  achieves,  more  or  less  per- 
fectly, seems  to  demand  and  to  warrant  an  explanation  which 
shall  reveal  the  very  nature  of  reality.  The  world  as  known 
to  man  —  and  here  we  agree  with  Kant  in  saying  that  this  is 
the  only  world  with  which  metaphysics  can  deal  —  is  some 
sort  of  a  unity.  To  answer  by  reflective  treatment  of  the 
categories  the  question,  What  sort  of  a  unity  ?  is  a  supreme 
problem  for  metaphysical  system. 

Three  views  are  possible  as  to  the  relations  between  them- 
selves sustained  by  those  forms  of  cognitive  experience  which 
naive  common-sense  and  the  positive  sciences  alike  agree  to 
accept  as  applicable  to  all  known  realities.  The  categories 
may  be  regarded  in  an  individualistic  way,  as  it  were ;  they 


HARMONY   OF   THE  CATEGORIES  103 

rnay  be  taken  simply  as  accidental  and  unrelated  entities,  or 
forms,  or  laws,  of  things,  which  are  to  be  accepted  without 
recognition  of  any  necessity  for  further  critical  thinking 
But  to  continue  in  this  point  of  view  is  to  refuse  to  phi- 
losophize. From  this  uncritical  position  that  strange  circle  in 
actual  cognition  —  namely,  trans-subjective  existence  is  im- 
plicate in  experience,  but  experience  itself  assumes,  for  its 
own  explanation,  such  existence ;  or  being  and  knowledge 
are  related  in  such  manner  that  neither  can  be  regarded  as 
a  point  of  starting  independent  of  the  other  —  offers  no  prob- 
lems worthy  of  reflective  consideration.  As  soon,  however,  as 
the  different  categories  are  studied  in  a  comparative  way,  the 
recognition  follows  of  some  kind  of  relations  among  them 
which  demand  a  persistent  effort  at  harmony.  The  result  of 
this  effort  may  be  a  certain  doctrine  of  antinomies,  or  fun- 
damental and  irreconcilable  contradictions  among  the  cat- 
egories. And  this  is  the  second  of  the  three  possible  ways  of 
viewing  the  forms  of  human  cognition. 

This  doctrine,  that  the  categories  show  irreconcilable  con- 
tradictions, may  be  held  and  expounded  in  any  one  of  several 
different  ways.  There  is,  for  example,  that  earlier  form  which 
belonged  to  the  Greek  scepticism,  and  which  has  ever  since 
furnished  puzzles  for  children  and  for  somewhat  childish 
adult  minds.  In  fact,  and  as  tested  by  man's  experience 
with  real  things,  Achilles  does  overtake  the  tortoise  ;  the 
arrow  does  fly  from  the  bow-string  to  the  mark ;  and  every 
single  being  is  known  under  an  indefinite  number  of  diversi- 
fied qualifications.  Yet  Zeno  and  Heraclitus  go  on  disputing. 
And  by  refining  abstractions  of  Space,  Time,  Motion,  Quan- 
tity, and  Number,  it  is  demonstrated  that  no  one  of  these  well- 
known  events  can  in  reality  possibly  be. 

How  Kant  regarded  the  categories,  from  the  subjective 
point  of  view,  has  already  been  made  the  subject  of  critical 
remark.  They  constitute,  in  his  view,  an  orderly  system, 
with  the  unity  necessarily  belonging  to  the  product  of  a  mind  ; 


104  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

that  is,  both  sense  and  understanding  are  brought  into  harmony 
of  action  by  the  mediation  of  imagination.  Thus  the  system 
of  known  realities  attains  a  partial  and  dependent  kind  of 
unity ;  because  it  is  itself  nothing  other  than  the  product  of 
the  continued  activity  of  mind  —  upon  the  raw  material  of  un- 
organized experience.  Further,  the  service  of  an  illusory 
dialectic  succeeds  in  bringing  these  organized  experiences 
toward  but  never  into,  the  unity  of  the  supreme  ideas  of 
reason.  The  moment,  however,  we  try  to  regard  the  cat- 
egories as  applicable  to  trans-subjective  realities  —  to  what 
Kant  calls  Dinge-an-sich  or  Gegenstdnde  uberhaupt,  —  the 
most  stubborn  and  irreducible  contradictions  arise  between 
them.  They  now  become  "  paired  off  "  in  no  amicable  fashion ; 
the  rather  are  they  divided  off  against  each  other,  as  thesis 
and  antithesis,  and  made  ready  for  an  internecine  war.  The 
case  is  as  though  the  principle  of  tribal  "  blood-revenge  "  had 
been  let  loose  among  the  categories.  Out  of  their  legitimate 
territory  any  one  who  will  may  destroy  them  and  have  no 
account  to  render  at  the  bar  of  metaphysics,  of  ethics,  or 
of  religion. 

But  the  critical  work  of  Kant  with  the  categories  leaves  at 
least  a  certain  large  and  comforting  remnant  of  knowledge. 
Within  their  proper  sphere  they  act  in  harmony ;  and  to  the 
critic,  as  well  as  to  the  user  of  them,  from  the  Kantian  point 
of  view  they  appear  as  a  most  wonderful  and  orderly,  yet  mys- 
terious system  of  forms.  Neither  is  it  warrantable  to  speak 
of  the  world  which  they  result  in  producing  as  the  realm  of 
mere  "  Appearance  ; "  it  is  rather  the  world  of  known  reali- 
ties, although  of  phenomenal  realities.  Moreover,  by  other 
avenues  of  approach  we  are  to  be  given  enough  of  faith,  if  not 
of  knowledge,  that  shall  disclose  the  practically  acceptable 
constitution  of  that  Ultimate  Reality  to  which  the  categories 
do  not  apply.  By  the  work  of  critics  like  Mr.  Bradley,  how- 
ever, all  the  Kantian  categories  are  thrown  into  the  most 
determined  and  irreconcilable  conflict,  within  that  very  sphere 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  105 

within  which  Kant  himself  held  that  they  constitue  a  perfect 
and  harmonious  system.  That  is  to  say,  when  the  attempt  is 
made  to  apply  the  forms  of  cognition  to  the  concrete  realities 
of  our  experience,  they  show  such  internal  contradictions  as 
compel  the  belief  that  these  realities  themselves  are  mere 
seeming.  And  thus  the  doctrine  of  antinomies,  as  inherently 
irreconcilable  oppositions  among  the  categories  in  their  appli- 
cation to  the  actual  concrete  cognition  of  men,  returns  to  essen- 
tially the  same  form  as  that  given  it  by  the  ancient  Greek 
scepticism  and  agnosticism.  All  known  real  things  are  now 
at  "  loggerheads  "  with  one  another.  And  the  Reality  becomes 
identified  with  the  unrelated  (the  "  uncategorized  " — if  we 
may  be  pardoned  such  a  word)  One. 

It  is  the  third  view  touching  the  relations  that  exist  between 
the  categories  which  it  is  our  purpose  to  maintain.  They  are 
not  to  be  considered  as  disconnected  and  unrelated  forms 
either  of  knowledge  or  of  being,  —  picked  up  haphazard  and 
adopted  as  though  no  mutual  understanding  or  common  signi- 
ficance were  presupposed.  Neither  does  any  fair  criticism, 
however  searching,  show  internal  and  irreconcilable  contradic- 
tions among  them.  The  rather  are  they,  both  when  in  use  for 
actual  work-a-day  or  scientific  knowledge  and  when,  in  hospi- 
tal, lying  under  the  scalpel  of  the  analyst,  a  beautiful  and 
wondrous  system.  They  do  not  need  to  be  actually  systema- 
tized by  logician  or  metaphysician.  The  surgeon's  knife, 
whether  his  subject  be  alive  or  the  dissection  be  post  mortem, 
does  not  create  the  organism.  A  sort  of  organic  character, 
a  unifying  life,  belongs  to  the  categories  :  the  result  of  analy- 
sis is  to  discover  it  there.  And  the  entire  task  of  systematic 
metaphysics  is  not  accomplished  —  it  is  scarcely  properly 
begun  —  until  a  sympathetic  insight  into  the  truth  of  reality 
has  operated  in  a  synthetic  way  to  reconstruct  in  theory  this 
actually  existing  harmony. 

The  fuller  proof  of  this  comparative  doctrine,  which  asserts 
a  significant  interior  unity  as  belonging  to  all  concrete  appli- 


106  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

cation  of  the  categories,  must  await  for  its  details  the  con- 
clusion of  our  work.  Indeed,  the  whole  circle  of  proofs  takes 
us  beyond  the  limits  even  of  a  general  system  of  ontology ; 
it  demands  a  reflective  treatment  of  the  ideals  of  conduct, 
art,  and  religion.  But  the  ultimate  grounds  on  which  these 
proofs  rest,  and  from  the  exploration  of  which  the  proofs  pro- 
ceed, are  all  laid  in  man's  indubitable  cognitive  experience. 

First,  then,  the  unity  of  the  categories  is  proved  by  the  fact 
that  every  act  of  knowledge  results  from  the  harmonious 
union  of  all  these  forms  of  knowledge,  and  thus  gives  to  the 
mind  an  object  of  knowledge  which  is  itself  a  concrete  example 
of  their  real  union.  The  rather  may  it  be  said,  that,  down 
below  all  proof,  and  so  too  deep  for  proof,  lies  the  nature  of 
the  process  of  knowledge  itself.  This  process,  as  experienced 
and  not  proved,  is  actually  a  unifying  actus  of  mind  in  which 
all  the  activities  of  mind  harmoniously  take  part.  The  object 
known  is  actually  a  being  that  answers  the  quest  for  unity  by 
presenting  itself  to  the  mind  as  real,  and  really  possessed  of 
the  categories.  Every  known  existence  is  characterized  to 
thought  by  the  categories  in  a  unifying  way ;  because  it  is 
constituted  in  reality  as  a  unity  of  the  same  categories. 

Second  :  The  unity  which  the  development  of  all  the  partic- 
ular sciences  is  giving  to  man's  conception  of  the  real  world 
is  a  further  proof  of  the  unity  of  the  categories.  But  this 
proof,  too,  —  strictly  speaking,  —  lies  down  below  all  proof, 
and  yet  is  the  surer  because  its  foundations  are  too  deep  for 
proof.  It  is  a  sort  of  faith  in  the  world's  unity  which  is  only 
partially  based  upon  experience.  The  great  fact  in  the  sci- 
entific progress  of  the  race  is  its  tendency  toward  unification, 
—  its  growth  toward  a  unitary  conception  of  those  diverse  real- 
ities and  their  manifold  connections  which  are  given  to  every 
individual  and  to  every  generation  of  men.  More  and  more 
continually  is  the  complex  of  things  and  minds  conceived  of 
by  man  as  a  Cosmos  —  an  orderly  Whole.  Hasty  generaliza- 
tions abound  and  always  have  abounded,  often  to  defeat  tern- 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  107 

porarily  the  very  end  at  which  they  were  themselves  aimed. 
Exceptions  exist  to  all,  or  nearly  all,  known  laws.  Irregul- 
arities occur  which  compel  science  to  suspect  or  to  modify  its 
most  select  formulas.  The  particular  departments  of  human 
knowledge  set  up  their  sometimes  sharp  and  petty  contro- 
versies for  supremacy  ;  or  they  proclaim  good-natured  offers 
to  effect  a  harmony  on  terms  of  surrender  without  reserve. 
And  yet  the  time  comes  when  these  sciences  must  stretch  out 
hands  toward  each  other,  and  confess  :  "  We  have  erred  ;  but 
come  now,  for  we  are  brothers,  and  why  should  we  not  help 
each  other  and  dwell  together  in  unity  ?  "  Now  even  if  this 
progressive  unification  is  a  manifestation  of  the  illusory  dia- 
lectic which  Kant  wished  to  chasten,  it  is  nevertheless  an  actual 
result  due  to  the  growth  of  human  experience  by  way  of  an 
increasing  knowledge  of  the  real  nature  and  actual  relations 
of  things.  And  if  it  is  a  real  growth  of  cognitive  experience, 
—  in  any  defensible  meaning  of  the  word  "  cognitive,"  — 
then  the  real  world  is  more  and  more  known  as  some  sort  of 
a  Unity.  This  Unity  in  Reality  is  that  actual  harmonizing 
of  the  categories  which,  from  the  ideal  points  of  view,  is  so 
satisfactory  to  human  reason. 

But,  thirdly,  the  unity  of  the  categories  is  shown  by  the 
results  of  a  considerate  and  yet  critical  examination  of  the 
categories.  To  effect  this  examination  in  detail  is  the  task 
more  immediately  before  us.  Any  success  in  this  task  ought 
to  show  that  lack  of  harmony,  or  apparent  contradiction, 
amongst  them  results  either  from  insufficient  analysis  or 
from  a  misleading  dialectics.  It  is,  we  believe,  in  every  case, 
the  distorted  abstractions  of  the  metaphysician,  and  not  the 
actual  forms  of  cognitive  experience,  which  refuse  to  harmo- 
nize with  one  another.  To  make  peace  is  better  than  to  make 
trouble  ;  to  unite  in  thought  that  which  goes  together  in 
knowledge  and  in  reality  is  more  honorable  than  to  separate 
between  friendly  and  allied  conceptions.  The  former  is, 
indeed,  the  harder  thing  to  do.  It  is  always  easier  to  display 


108  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  imperfections,  limitations,  gaps,  and  disastrous  pitfalls  of 
the  human  mind,  than  to  give  a  sympathetic  and  apprecia- 
tive interpretation  to  the  common  facts  of  man's  experience 
with  himself  and  with  external  nature.  But  if  the  task  is 
greater,  so  also  is  the  reward  of  its  accomplishment. 

At  the  close  of  these  introductory  chapters  we  sum  up 
certain  conclusions  already  reached,  and  briefly  set  forth  the 
principal  truths  which  it  is  our  aim  to  establish. 

Systematic  metaphysics  is  a  proper  subject  for  the  philo- 
sophic mind  ;  for  it  is  nothing  worse  or  more  impossible  than 
the  effort  to  subject  the  facts  of  our  cognitive  experience 
touching  the  nature  of  reality  to  a  critical  examination  by 
reflective  thinking.  As  ontology  it  takes  a  positive  and 
fairly  hopeful  view  of  the  epistemological  problem  involved  ; 
supposing  that  this  is  not  a  task  impossible  for  man,  it  under- 
takes that  task  with  a  sober  confidence  in  human  reason. 
But  it  continually  insists  on  bringing  its  reflections  and  in- 
sights back  to  the  testing  of  the  facts  disclosed  by  ordinary 
experience  and  by  the  positive  sciences. 

Since  real  beings  furnish  the  field  for  metaphysical  research, 
and  the  metaphysical  problem  is  faithfully  to  characterize  the 
real  according  to  the  accepted  forms  of  all  cognition,  we  recog- 
nize a  distinction  between  "appearance"  and  "reality."  But 
this  distinction  cannot  be  so  set  up  and  carried  through  as  to 
divide  the  cognitive  faculties,  or  the  results  of  their  activity 
in  the  evolution  of  knowledge  for  the  individual  or  for  the 
race,  into  two  separate  parts,  to  be  called  by  these  two  names. 
On  the  contrary,  we  find  the  very  word  "  appearance  "  most 
highly  significant  of  the  nature  of  reality. 

When  the  student  of  metaphysics  directs  his  attention  to 
that  one  word,  Reality,  which  is  employed  somehow  to  gather 
together  and  express  the  whole  field  of  his  research,  —  the 
subject  he  wishes  to  get  at,  —  he  finds  this  word,  of  all  others, 
most  rich,  and  yet  somehow  vague  in  content.  But  since  he 
cannot  investigate  the  infinite  particulars  with  which  the 


HARMONY  OF   THE   CATEGORIES  109 

different  branches  of  human  knowledge  have  to  do,  he  raises 
the  more  general  question  to  define  his  problem:  What  is  it 
really  to  be,  as  all  things  and  mind  are  in  their  varying  rela- 
tions, transactions,  and  qualities  ?  This  general  question 
must  be  answered  by  a  reference  to  those  universal  forms  of 
knowledge  which  men  accept  as  the  forms  of  real  being  — 
of  the  minds  and  things  that  really  are. 

Thus,  then,  to  study  the  fundamental  data  of  human  cog- 
nitive experience,  and  to  reduce  them  to  a  unitary  conception 
which  shall  provide  for  all  the  varied  realities  of  the  world  in 
some  harmonizing  way,  is  the  task  of  the  student  of  meta- 
physics. His  conclusions  will  have  the  value  —  and  only  the 
value  (although  why  should  this  be  considered  a  small 
thing  ?  )  —  of  a  tenable  Theory  of  Reality. 

The  detailed  exposition  of  such  a  theory,  which  will  now 
follow,  involves  the  discussion  and  illustration  of  the  follow- 
ing fundamental  truths.  Each  of  them  is  a  truth  which  has 
its  roots  in  the  primitive  facts  and  in  the  maturer  growths  of 
knowledge,  but  which  is  also  ontological  in  its  nature  and 
application.  First:  All  the  categories  are  forms,  both  of 
knowledge  and  of  being,  that  are  actually  and  indubitably 
realized  in  all  our  cognitive  experience  with  the  Self.  I  am  a 
Being  whose  existence  and  whose  self-knowledge  is  consti- 
tuted a  Unity,  because  I  am  a  self-conscious  Self.  Second  : 
All  the  real  beings  which  are  known  as  Things,  together 
with  their  attributes,  changes,  relations,  laws,  etc.,  are  made 
actual  in  our  cognitive  experience  only  as  there  is  projected 
into  them,  so  to  speak,  the  same  forms  of  Being  which 
I  know  the  Self  to  have.  The  categories,  so  far  as  they 
can  get  any  recognizable  meaning  in  their  application  to 
actual  things,  are  the  same  categories  as  those  under  which 
we  know  the  Being  of  the  Self.  Third :  The  Unity  in  a  world 
of  Reality  which  all  things  and  all  minds  have  is  known  in 
terms  of  an  all-inclusive  and  Absolute  Self.  Only  the  con- 
ception of  "  Self-hood  "  can  bring  into  actual  and  cognizable 


110  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Unity  that  complex  of  concrete  realities  which  both  the  work- 
a-day  and  the  scientific  experience  of  the  race  contains.  And 
this  unifying  conception  is  properly  held  by  the  mind,  not  as 
a  mere  conception,  but  as  the  ultimate  form  given  by  reflec- 
tive thinking  to  our  knowledge  of  Reality. 


CHAPTER  V 

PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES 

IT  follows  from  what  has  already  been  shown  that  none  of 
the  fundamental  forms  of  knowledge  and  of  reality  can  be 
critically  examined  without  more  or  less  of  implicit  reference 
to  all  the  others.  For  the  actual  system  of  things  which  we 
call  the  "  World "  as  known  to  men  is  no  mere  logical 
arrangement  of  mental  forms,  but  the  vital  and  interacting 
unity  of  an  infinite  number  of  particular  realities.  And 
moreover,  each  one  of  these  particular  realities  is  itself  a  sort 
of  actual  system,  or  actualized  unity  of  all  the  forms  of  being. 
It  is  therefore  impossible  to  say  all  that  particular  real 
beings,  with  their  entire  outfit  of  qualities  are,  without  dis- 
cussing all  the  categories.  But  just  now  a  problem  is  before 
us  which  must  be  more  closely  defined ;  and  if  it  were  not  for 
certain  objections,  —  mostly  verbal  and  historical,  rather  than 
essential,  —  the  definition  of  this  problem  might  be  expressed 
in  terms  of  two  allied  conceptions.  These  two  constitute  a 
sort  of  pair,  the  first  of  which  (curiously  enough)  is  particu- 
larly shy  of  yielding  to  any  fixed  and  apprehensible  termi- 
nology. Every  particular  real  being  —  let  us  say  tentatively  — 
is  necessarily  a  substance  with  attributes,  a  subject  of  many 
states,  an  existence  which  does  and  experiences  various  changes 
or  has  various  qualities.  To  adopt  the  uncouth  language  of 
modern  science,  which  here  corresponds  to  that  of  Aristotle,  it 
is  a  "  that-which,"  existing  under  an  indefinite  number  of  condi- 
tions and  relations,  that  require  to  be  determined  by  telling 
stories  about  the  "what"  of  the  same  thing.  Its  "that- 


112  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

which  "  is  assumed  or  "  posited  "  by  science  ;  its  "  what  " 
is  described  by  science. 

The  most  scanty  reading  in  the  history  of  metaphysical 
-speculation  shows  how  much  debate  has  been  had  in  the  past 
over  the  conception  of  "  Substantiality."  Or,  without  essen- 
tially changing  the  thoughts  involved,  we  may  substitute  for 
this  word  the  terms  "  pure  being,"  "  being  as  such,"  or  Ding- 
an-sich.  But  the  current  metaphysical  or  <mta'-metaphysical 
literature  shows  how  distasteful  and  unpopular,  even  in  scholas- 
tic circles,  all  such  abstract  terminology  has  now  become.  This 
is,  no  doubt,  partly  the  result  of  the  crimes  against  both  ex- 
perience and  clear  thinking  which  have  been  committed  in 
the  name  of  this  conception.  These  crimes  are  certainly 
neither  small  in  magnitude  nor  few  in  number.  But  perhaps 
it  is  time  to  call  off  from  this  hunt  the  attention  of  minds 
seriously  disposed  to  analysis  and  reflective  thinking ;  and  to 
remind  them  that  such  words  as  "  substantiality  ;  "  pure  be- 
ing," Ding-an-sich,  etc.,  at*  least  represent  many  an  honest 
attempt  at  solving  the  mystery  of  existence.  Nor  do  we  con- 
sider it  self-evident  that  some  of  this  hasty  scorn  in  the  cur- 
rent psychology  and  philosophy  may  not  be  due  to  a  certain 
popular  shallowness  of  thought  and  of  speech.  At  any  rate, 
it  is  certain  that  the  most  radically  destructive  assault  upon 
the  old-fashioned  category  of  substance  can  only  have  a  nega- 
tive result.  Its  criticism  is,  at  best,  only  pioneer  work ;  it 
removes  obstacles  and  clears  the  path  ;  but  it  plants  no  seed 
and  harvests  no  crop. 

The  truth  remains  that  there  is  in  all  human  cognitive 
experience  a  persistent  and  ineradicable  something  which 
corresponds  to  the  metaphysical  term  "  substance."  This 
something  is  always  posited  as  necessary  to  the  actual  exist- 
ence of  any  thing,  or  of  the  whole  world  of  minds  and  things. 
The  denial  of  this  something  is  the  one  bare  asseveration  of 
the  current  phenomenism  which  shows  conclusively  the  in- 
sufficiency of  its  analysis  of  experience  ;  which  puts  it  into 


UNIVERSI1] 
PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR 


irreconcilable  conflict  with  the  common-sense  of  mankind, 
with  the  assumptions  and  conclusions  of  all  the  particular 
sciences,  with  the  inferences  that  flow  from  the  language  and 
actions  of  men,  and  with  all  the  most  abiding  and  trust- 
worthy conclusions  of  the  world's  greatest  thinkers.  This 
denial  also  makes  the  psychology  and  the  philosophy  which 
espouses  phenomenism  an  object  of  little  esteem,  except 
among  the  small  group  of  scholastics  with  whom  it  is 
current. 

Use,  then,  what  terms  the  metaphysician  will,  he  must 
reckon  with  the  same  ontological  problem.  Such  words  as 
"  substantiality,"  "  pure  being,"  Ding-an-sich,  etc.,  and  the 
conception  corresponding  to  them,  have  been  so  persistent  in 
philosophy  that  something  actual  and  universal  in  our  human 
experience  must  be  recognized  which  corresponds  to  them,  — 
so  persistent  and  expressive  that  something  to  correspond 
must  belong  to  the  very  nature  of  reality. 

Every  particular  real  Thing  is  a  substance  with  attributes, 
a  being  that  has  qualities  ;  every  "  phenomenal  existence  " 
implies  as  its  ground,  or  cause,  some  Ding-an-sich.  Every  con- 
crete reality  is  possessed  of  qualities  ;  or  every  actual  existence 
has,  and  not  merely  is,  the  perceptive  or  the  logical  totality  of 
its  qualities.  So  that  to  be  real  requires  the  recognition  of 
something  besides  a  more  or  less  persistently  recurrent  group 
of  connected  phenomena.  The  "  thing-hood  "  of  each  particu- 
lar thing  is  more  than  the  mere  sum  of  its  qualities.  These 
are  abstract  and  now  old-fashioned  ways  of  expressing  one  of 
the  most  difficult  problems  which  meet  the  student  of  meta- 
physics. We  are  going  for  this  reason,  as  much  as  possible 
conveniently,  to  avoid  them.  But  the  problem  which  has  so 
often  been  expressed,  or  even  apparently  solved,  in  these  and 
similar  phrases,  compels  us  to  raise  a  number  of  questions  like 
the  following  :  Why  does  such  a  conception  emerge  at  all  in 
consciousness  ?  What  that  cannot  well  be  questioned,  and  is 
fundamental  in  human  cognitive  experience,  corresponds  to 

8 


114  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

this  conception  ?  What  does  critical  examination  learn  of 
this  conception  which  is  adapted,  so  to  speak,  to  apply  to  all 
that  men  call  real  —  both  minds  and  things  ? 

If  any  of  the  questions  just  raised  be  taken  before  the  "  plain 
man's  consciousness,"  we  can  obtain  —  no  matter  how  persist- 
ently we  question  it  —  only  very  unsatisfactory  replies.  The 
unanalyzed  judgment  and  language  of  men  insists  on  main- 
taining this  mysterious  conception  of  "  substance  "  or  "  real 
being ; "  but,  on  being  pressed  to  explain  the  conception,  it 
can  only  repeat  the  mystery,  either  with  what  amounts  to  a 
dumb  show  of  gesturing  or  in  some  obscure  figures  of  speech. 
This  is  chiefly  true,  however,  only  of  physical  things  ;  it  is  less 
true  by  far  of  the  Self.  And  for  the  mind  upon  which  the 
full  light  of  a  reflective  experience  has  shined,  doubt  about 
the  substantiality  of  the  Self  is  impossible. 

"  Sensuous  experience"  (/Sinnliche  Empfindung),  says  Lotze,1 
"  has  always  been  looked  upon  as  that  ground  of  cogni- 
tion which  is  our  warrant  for  the  presence  of  real  Being." 
Another  writer  goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  "  sentient 
experience,  in  short,  is  reality,  and  what  is  not  this  is  not 
real :  "  But  Mr.  Bradley's  phrase  is  much  the  most  compre- 
hensive, for  it  is  immediately  defined  by  him  in  this  more 
expanded  form :  "  Feeling,  thought,  and  volition  (any  groups 
under  which  we  class  psychical  phenomena)  are  all  the  material 
of  existence."  2  Such  a  declaration  as  this  must  be  accepted 
as  final  if  we  may  be  allowed  to  give  it  the  following  shape  : 
In  cognitive  experience  all  we  can  mean  by  reality  is  implicated. 
If,  however,  appeal  be  made  to  this  experience  in  its  uncritical 
form  the  answer  will  no  doubt  take  its  point  of  starting  from 
the  sense-perception  of  things.  Ask  the  "  plain  man  "  what  it 
is  in  that  particular  thing  which  makes  it  real  to  him,  and 
he  will  begin  to  pass  in  review  his  sensuous  experiences.  It 
—  the  "  thing  "  —  is  to  be  seen  as  having  such  a  color  and  as 

1  Metaphysic,  Book  I.,  chap,  i.,  §  2. 

2  Appearance  and  Reality,  p.  144. 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS   AND   THEIR  QUALITIES      115 

being  so  large  and  so  shaped ;  to  be  felt  as  rough  or  smooth, 
light  or  heavy  ;  it  is  known  to  have  such  other  properties  and 
a  variety  of  well-known  uses ;  and,  perhaps,  to  have  such  a 
name  and  to  belong  to  such  a  familiar  class  of  objects.  The 
proof  that  any  particular  answer  "  as  to  what  "  the  thing  is  has 
been  correctly  given  must  be  taken  back  in  detail  to  the 
renewed  testing  of  the  senses  of  the  same  person,  or  of  the 
senses  of  other  persons.  And  if  persistent  doubt  arises  con- 
cerning the  correctness  of  the  first  answers,  then  if  the  thing 
endures  for  some  time  "  substantially  "  (as  it  is  naively  said) 
unchanged  to  sense-experience  it  may  be  considered  to  have 
dispelled  any  doubt  over  the  reality  of  its  existence. 

But  now  let  appeal  be  made  to  this  same  uncritical  experi- 
ence with  the  inquiry  whether  the  reality  of  any  particular 
being  consist  merely  in  the  continuance  together,  as  a  fact  of 
sense-experience,  of  some  group  of  sensuous  qualities.  It  will 
be  somewhat  difficult,  indeed,  for  the  plain  man  fully  to  com- 
prehend such  an  inquiry.  But  sooner  by  far  will  he  credit  the 
tale  that  any  most  solid  thing  has  ceased  to  be,  and  even  that 
its  entire  substance  has  passed  from  the- world  of  real  beings, 
than  credit  the  supposition  that,  so  long  as  anything  is  known 
to  be,  its  reality  can  be  fully  conceived  of  as  a  mere  "  bundle  " 
of  qualities  put  together  in  his  own  sense-experience.  You 
may  easily  convince  him  you  have  u  burned  up  "  the  tree  he  saw 
yesterday ;  but  you  cannot  convince  him  that  the  tree  he  sees 
to-day  has  no  trans-subjective  reality.  Annihilation  of  things 
is  much  easier  credited  than  their  mere  subjectivity. 

Now  here,  indeed,  is  a  strange  puzzle  proposed  to  meta- 
physics by  the  popular  way  of  regarding  real  things  in  all  the 
more  primary  acts  of  human  cognition.  The  particular  thing 
is  always  known  to  men  only  as  it  has  certain  specific  qualities  ; 
it  may  be  conceived  of,  actually  known,  to  have  disappeared 
from  existence  with  all  its  qualities  ;  but  so  long  as  it  really 
does  exist,  it  cannot  be  merely  a  grouping  of  qualities.  In 
other  and  figurative  language :  in  order  to  be  a  thing,  there 


116  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

must  be  an  actual  u  point  of  attachment "  for  the  qualities ; 
and  this  point  of  attachment  must  be  conceived  of  as 
enduring  throughout  the  real  existence  of  the  thing.  Only 
thus  is  any  particular  Being  able  to  produce  the  conviction 
that  it  is ;  otherwise  all  our  knowledge  concerning  what  it  is 
would  not  amount  to  endowing  it  with  reality.  Indeed,  its 
reality  is  no  endowment  of  our  cognitive  faculties  ;  whereas 
its  qualities  may  be  considered  as  the  way  in  which  it  is 
known  by  these  faculties. 

If  now  the  physical  and  natural  sciences  be  inquired  of, 
one  by  one,  what  they  understand  by  the  real  being  of  any 
particular  Thing,  they  answer  with  a  wonderful  enriching  of 
human  knowledge  as  to  the  properties  of  things.  Each  of 
these  sciences  has  volumes  which  discourse  at  length  respect- 
ing its  peculiar  aspect  of  the  general  inquiry.  But  all  of  them 
together,  with  all  the  volumes  their  devoted  scholars  have  ever 
written,  cannot  tell  the  entire  story  as  to  "  what "  any  single 
thing  really  is.  Not  one  of  them,  however,  in  the  least  alters  — 
either  by  increasing  or  diminishing,  by  removing  or  modifying 
—  the  conviction  and  the  aspect  of  cognitive  experience 
answering  to  the  so-called  "substantiality"  of  things.  And 
why  should  the  students  of  the  physical  and  natural  sciences 
be  either  expected  or  qualified  to  accomplish  this  difficult 
task  of  metaphysical  criticism  ?  They  are  precisely  as  naive 
and  uncritical  towards  this  conception  as  are  the  most  ordinary 
of  minds.  These  sciences  will  increase  our  knowledge  as  to 
what  things  really  exist,  and  as  to  what  others  are  the  prod- 
ucts of  superstition  and  of  fancy  ;  as  to  what  is  the  constitution 
of  the  things  which  do  exist,  and  what  they  can  do,  and  how  the 
relations  between  them  change,  and  what  careers  we  may  expect 
them  to  run  in  their  joint  course  as  parts  of  an  all-embracing 
Cosmos.  But  they  are  compelled  to  assume  or  posit  a  "  that- 
which."  a  reality  comprising  manifold  "points  of  attach- 
ment," to  which  all  these  properties,  transactions,  and 
relations  may  be  ascribed. 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES      117 

Nor  do  the  merely  logical  explanations  of  this  same  onto- 
logical  conception,  as  ordinarily  given,  carry  us  much  farther 
into  the  heart  of  its  meaning.  Logic  does,  to  be  sure,  enable 
us  to  see  on  what  occasions,  and  even  under  what  conditions, 
men  correctly  make  use  of  this  category.  But  in  doing  this 
friendly  office  its  students  are  peculiarly  liable  to  mislead  us 
by  a  specious  analysis  which  resolves  the  "  real  being,"  or 
"  substance,"  of  things  into  some  other  and  "  purer  "  thought- 
form.  Sometimes  —  as  will  appear  more  clearly  when  we 
consider  the  metaphysical  conceptions  of  matter  and  of 
mind  —  logical  analysis  tries  to  slip  over,  or  cover  up,  the 
real  problem  by  introducing  some  very  unpretentious  but  most 
potent  and  deceptive  phrase,  —  as,  for  example,  the  one 
employed  so  frequently  by  the  positive  sciences,  namely, 
"  that-which."  Matter  is  "  that-which,"  etc. ;  or  mind  is 
"  that-which,"  etc.  But  our  question  concerns  precisely  this, 
—  the  meaning  and  outcome  of  this  convenient  phrase, 
"  that-which." 

Sometimes,  however,  this  category  of  substance  is  resolved 
in  terms  of  number,  relation,  and  time  ;  and  then  one  is  told 
that  the  substance  of  any  thing  is  a  sort  of  enduring  unity 
established  among  the  more  obvious  regular  transactions  of 
the  thing.  Sometimes,  again,  one  is  taken  nearer  the  heart 
of  the  truth  and  is  told  that  by  this  conception  men  express 
their  confidence  in  an  "  external  cause  of  their  sensations." 
Here  space,  cause,  and  relation,  are  so  combined  as  to  stand 
together  in  the  room  of  the  category  of  substance.  Now  this 
category  has  not  three  feet,  but  one  foot.  And  it  is  itself 
in  origin  more  simple  and  obvious  than  the  category  of  cause. 
To  resolve  substantiality  into  mere  force  is  an  even  nearer  hit 
at  the  fundamental  truths  of  our  experience  with  the  real. 

We  are  assured  by  Wundt 1,  as  a  matter  of  logical  analysis, 
that  an  object-thing  is  given  to  our  thinking  when  a  complex 
of  properties  and  conditions  is  found  coexisting  with  a  certain 

1  Logik,  p.  410. 


118  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

constancy.  And  elsewhere 1  we  are  told  by  the  same  writer 
that  "  extra-mental "  reality  is  given  to  such  an  object-thing 
on  the  basis  of  an  assumption  which  may  be  expressed  as 
follows :  "  All  perceptions  which  stand  in  connection  accord 
ing  to  their  time-space  form  must  also  be  connected  together 
in  respect  of  their  content."  Hence  arises  the  demand  so  to 
think  the  actuality  that  the  contradiction  which  Herbart  and 
others  have  found  in  the  very  conception  of  substance  shall 
be  done  away.  In  our  effort  to  meet  this  demand  the  mind 
receives  help  from  the  conception  of  a  Law  regulating  the 
Change  which  things  undergo,  and  thus  bringing  about  in 
them,  for  thought,  the  unity  which  they  certainly  appear  to 
have  to  the  senses.  Further  reflection  upon  this  conception 
of  substance  ordinarily  results  in  two  false  views  :  (1)  that 
substance  is  the  ground  of  experience,  but  is  not  given  in 
experience  ;  and  (2)  that  substance,  as  being,  is  opposed  to 
appearance  or  phenomena.2  In  both  these  views,  Wundt  sees 
a  contradiction;  for  the  former  regards  the  category  as 
merely  hypothetical,  and  the  latter  regards  the  same  category 
as  the  only  actual,  of  which  the  phenomenal  in  our  experience 
is  merely  a  manifestation. 

In  thus  clearing  the  ground  for  the  recognition  of  the  true 
genesis  and  nature  of  this  conception  of  substantiality  we  find 
ourselves  in  agreement  with  the  positions  of  Wundt.  The 
two  views  which  he  regards  as  false  cannot  possibly  be  ac- 
cepted as  true,  without  a  total  abandonment  of  the  most 
fundamental  position  which  we  have  elsewhere  taken  regard- 
ing the  nature  and  validity  of  cognitive  experience,  and  re- 
garding the  nature  and  application  to  realities  of  all  the 
categories.  With  the  determination  not  to  be  deceived  into 
setting  up  internal  contradictions  between  abstractions  and 
mistaking  them  for  contradictions  inherent  either  in  our  own 
cognitive  processes  or  in  the  nature  of  things,  we  also  sym- 

1  System  der  Philosophic,  p.  170. 
2  Ibid.,  p.  267  f. 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS   AND  THEIR  QUALITIES      119 

pathize  most  heartily.  But  it  is  just  at  the  point  where  the 
more  purely  logical  treatment  of  this  category  is  abandoned  for 
its  more  critical  and  metaphysical  treatment,  that  we  find  our- 
selves forced  into  positions  of  antagonism.  For  Wundt  be- 
comes uncertain  and  obscure  in  his  analysis  when  he  attempts 
to  deal  with  the  "  psychological  application  of  the  concept  of 
substance."  Whereas  it  is  in  the  application  of  this  category 
to  the  Self  —  not,  however,  as  separate  from  external  objects, 
but  as  in  a  living  commerce  with  them  —  that  we  discover  the 
genesis  and  realize  the  meaning  of  the  same  category  as  ap- 
plied to  things.  Moreover,  instead  of  finding  the  conception 
of  "  substantiality  "  as  held  by  the  physical  sciences  superior 
in  clearness  to  that  of  psychology,  the  exact  opposite  seems 
to  us  true.  Still  further,  the  opposition  which  Wundt  sets 
up  between  the  scientific  and  the  religious  conception  of  sub- 
stance seems  to  us  another  of  those  contradictions  between 
mere  abstractions  which  a  genuine  spirit  of  philosophy  seeks 
so  diligently  to  avoid. 

But  returning  to  the  earlier  point  of  view,  we  are  impressed 
anew  with  the  inability  of  logic  to  solve  our  problem.  For  it 
seems  that  logic  can  only  enumerate  certain  conditions  under 
which  the  category  of  substance  is  implied  in  all  acts  of 
knowledge,  and  then  go  on  to  add  certain  other  categories 
with  which  it  is  most  closely  allied  in  the  same  activity  of 
knowing.  Doubtless,  "  constancy  "  in  certain  specified  proper- 
ties and  conditions  of  every  object  is  necessary  in  order  that 
the  mind  may  either  perceive,  or  conceive  of,  any  particular 
object  as  a  real  being,  —  as  having  the  substantial  existence 
of  a  Thing.  Doubtless,  men  ordinarily  assume  that  what  is 
connected  in  their  experience  with  a  sufficient  constancy  is 
also  somehow  similarly  connected  in  the  particular  reality. 
And  undoubtedly  the  conception  of  a  law  regulating  change 
helps  the  mind  in  its  effort  to  think  its  way  into  the  clear 
light  of  a  full-orbed  conception  of  all  that  is  necessary  to  the 
actuality  of  any  particular  thing.  But  unless  these  words 


120  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

are  to  be  taken  as  empty  and  ineffective  abstractions,  com- 
forting to  the  thought  of  the  thinker  "  of  the  chair,"  but  quite 
inadequate  to  do  the  business  of  the  actual  world  of  real 
things,  we  must  find  something  more  in  them  than  they  at  first 
suggest.  Connection,  as  such,  is  bare  fact ;  it  is  inert  circum- 
stance —  whether  in  thought  or  among  things.  What  is  the 
"  that-which  "  that  connects  ?  Tying  together,  when  done,  is 
done ;  and  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  external  observer,, 
this  is  the  end  of  the  matter.  What  is  it  that  ties  together 
both  the  different  "  moments  "  of  the  cognitive  act,  and  the 
different  qualities  and  conditions  or  states  of  the  thing  known  ? 
And  how  can  the  mind  make  "  law  regulating  change  "  account 
for  the  real  being  of  anything,  unless  it  appeals,  under  cover 
of  these  words,  to  a  force  that  shall  somehow  constitute  the 
actual  unity  of  the  particular  being,  by  dominating,  as  it  were,, 
over  the  stream  of  the  phenomena  and  holding  them  con- 
stantly directed  upon  some  resultant  end  ? 

John  Stuart  Mill,1  after  rejecting  the  definition  of  the 
"  school-logicians  "  ("  A  substance  ...  is  self-existent ;  in. 
speaking  about  it,  we  need  not  put  of  after  its  name  "),  pro- 
poses to  define  the  same  conception  on  the  basis  of  the  or- 
dinary twofold  distinction  of  substances  into  bodies  and  minds* 
He  then  proceeds  to  characterize  the  former  as  "  the  unknown 
external  cause  "  to  which  we  refer  our  sensations ;  and  the 
latter  he  describes  as  "  the  sentient  subject  (in  the  scholastic 
sense  of  the  term)  of  all  feelings ;  that  which  has  or  feels 
them."  But  now  that  has  happened  with  this  writer  on  logic 
which  happens  with  him  and  with  all  his  followers  in  every 
similar  case  ;  a  delightful  simplicity  of  language  in  clearing 
up  logically  the  mystery  of  existence  has  only  led  us  from 
twilight  shadows  into  the  darkest  night. 

The  significance  of  Mill's  language  is,  however,  most  in- 
structive. Let  us  consider  it ;  we  are  to  have  here  a  per- 
fectly "  sun-clear  "  definition,  from  the  logician's  point  of  view,. 

1  A  System  of  Logic,  8th  edition,  Book  I.,  chap,  iii.,  §  6  f . 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND   THEIR  QUALITIES       121 

of  the  conception  of  substance  as  applied  both  to  things  and 
to  minds.  But  mind  is  denned  as  a  substance,  because  it  is 
a  subject,  in  the  scholastic  or  metaphysical  sense  of  that  term  ; 
it  is,  indeed,  a  veritable  "  that-which  ; "  and  "  being  sentient " 
is  set  down  as  the  mind's  characteristic  self-known  qualification. 
Now  so  far  as  the  substantiality  of  things  is  concerned,  this  is 
the  very  phrase  which  the  physicists  to  whom  Mill  defers  are 
ready  to  adopt ;  with  them  every  material  thing  is,  however 
unknowable  as  to  its  essence  otherwise,  a  veritable  "that- 
which," —  a  subject  of  states,  in  the  scholastic  sense  of  the 
term.  And  in  physics  it  is  because  of  their  substantiality 
that  bodies  are  known  as  a  cause  of  our  sensations  ;  but  this 
cause  is  external  (that  is  to  say,  "  not-ourselves"),  and  un- 
known, since  "  being  sentient,"  as  minds  are,  seems  not  to 
define  it  well.  Now  how  "  being  a  cause  "  differs  from  being 
a  "  that-which  has,"  etc.,  we  are  left  in  most  pitiable  condition 
of  doubt.  Apparently  these  two  phrases  amount  to  the  same 
thing ;  for  the  former  gives  us  the  conception  of  substance  as- 
body,  and  the  latter  the  conception  of  substance  as  mind. 
Neither  is  it  at  once  apparent  why  being  a  subject  of  states 
that  are  defined  by  the  word  "  sentient"  should  essentially  differ 
from  being  a  subject  of  states  that  cannot  be  defined  as  sentient ; 
—  at  least  so  far  as  "  being  a  subject "  at  all  is  concerned.  But 
what  if  one  goes  on  to  insist  upon  having  a  logical  conception 
of  what  it  is  "  to  be  a  subject,"  or  "  to  be  a  cause  "  (known  or 
unknown),  or  "  to  be  a  '  that-which,'  "  at  all  ?  In  answer  to 
this  metaphysical  inquiry,  the  acute  and  "  sun-clear  "  defini- 
tion of  the  logicians  appears  to  have  nothing  to  say.  But 
this  is  the  very  question  that  metaphysics  wishes  to  have 
answered. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how  Mr.  Bradley,  in  his  first 
positive  and  constructive  attempt  to  state  what  is  necessary 
to  reality,1  fixes  upon  "  self-consistency  "  as  its  most  essential 
characteristic.  Such  consistency,  however,  he  thinks,  cannot 

1  Appearance  and  Reality,  Book  II.,  chap.  xiii. 


122  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

belong  to  "independent  realities."  It  must  belong  only  to 
that  Unity  of  Reality  wbich  philosophy  seeks  to  find.  This 
self-consistency  as  a  single  system  is  self-existent.  But  it 
must  therefore  remain  unknown  by  any  other  than  its  self ; 
for  "  if  it  is  known  by  another,  then  forthwith  it  cannot  be 
self-existent  since  this  relation  must  clearly  belong  to  its 
essence."  Here  again  we  have  the  attempt  so  often  repeated 
in  the  history  of  philosophy  'to  form  a  logical  conception  of 
Reality  resulting  in  the  substitution  of  an  unknowable  One 
Being  for  that  concrete  fulness  of  life  and  meaning  which 
the  actual  system  of  realities  seems  to  possess  for  the  cogni- 
tive consciousness,  for  the  practical  life,  and  for  the  religious 
faith,  of  the  multitudes  of  men.  But  what  interests  us  at 
this  point  is  the  recurrence  in  all  these  conceptions  of  a  single 
word.  That  word  is  the  significant  word  Self.  How  shall 
this  word  be  understood  ?  When  the  school-logicians  defined 
substance  as  the  "  self-existent,"  did  they  mean  to  imply  the 
doctrine  that  every  object-thing  is  real  only  when  it  is  known, 
or  thought  of,  as  existent  after  the  analogy  of  the  Self  ?  To 
be  self-existent  =  to  exist  as  does  a  self,  —  at  least,  in  this 
respect,  that  some  point  of  attachment  for  the  changing  rela- 
tions and  states  is  assumed  to  remain  constant  amid  all 
change.  And  does  Mr.  Bradley's  "  self-consistency "  as  the 
core  of  reality  mean  anything  less  than  such  consistency  as  a 
self  may  have,  and  actually  does  have  ?  But  if  this  is  its 
meaning,  how  can  it  be  said  that  the  essence  of  reality  must 
remain  unknowable  by  us? 

From  our  perplexing  search  after  a  satisfactory  statement 
as  to  the  significance  of  this  category  we  return  with  some 
few  valuable  results.  Language,  science,  logical  analysis,  all 
alike,  imply  the  confident  recognition  of  something  in  experi- 
ence, and  something  in  reality,  which  answers  to  such  abstrac- 
tions as  Substance,  Being,  or  Ding-an-sich.  Moreover,  we 
have  been  constantly  pressed  back,  by  the  disappointing 
results  of  our  search,  toward  the  re-examination  of  the  actual 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND   THEIR  QUALITIES       123 

facts  of  cognitive  experience.  In  this  experience  we  seek  the 
genesis  and  the  interpretation  of  our  category.  Whence 
conies,  and  what  is  the  meaning  of,  this  X,  which  lies  at  the 
heart  of  every  particular  thing  ? 

So  far  as  the  answer  to  this  present  inquiry  lies  in  the 
patent  facts  of  human  experience  it  may  be  given  very  briefly 
in  this  place  ;  for  this  is  an  inquiry  which  has  occupied  us 
with  sufficient  detail  in  several  other  connections.1  In  brief, 
the  genesis  of  the  conception  which  has  gone  under  the  name 
of  "  substance,"  "  pure  being,"  Ding-an-sich,  is  to  be  found  in 
every  primary  fact  of  knowledge.  Every  such  fact  is,  on  its 
subjective  side,  a  "  self-felt  activity  "  of  the  knower,  a  doing 
that  is  not  mere  fact  of  conscious  change  but  is  also  a  con- 
sciousness of  doing.  Fused  with  an  indefinite  variety  of  sen- 
sation-factors, it  is  the  consciousness  that  I  am  alive ;  reflected 
upon  and  made  the  basis  of  generalization,  it  is  the  knowledge 
that  I  am  not  pure  passivity  or  unlimited  impressibility,  but  1 
am  a  Will.  This  self-activity,  however,  would  never  be  "  self- 
felt  "  in  such  a  manner  as  to  reveal  in  consciousness  the  very 
core  of  my  being,  were  it  not  itself  checked  and  inhibited. 
The  experience  of  being  checked  and  inhibited  on  every  hand 
is  the  very  core  of  my  cognition  of  every  other  Thing.  My 
self-felt  activity  is  opposed  by  "  that  which  "  is  not,  and  can- 
not be  recognized  by  me,  as  my  doing.  The  inhibition  is,  on 
the  contrary,  necessarily  recognized  as  the  doing  of  that 
which  is  not  me.  To  that  which,  not  being  my  self,  stands 
opposed  to  my  self-felt  activity,  I  attribute  the  same  essential 
being  which  I  know  myself  to  have.  It,  too,  is  a  centre  of 
activity  which  stands  to  my  self-felt  activity  in  the  reciprocal 
relation  of  acting  and  being  acted  upon.  It  is  in  this  funda- 
mental  fact  of  an  activity,  which  is  both  self -felt  and  also  known 


1  As  a  question  both  for  descriptive  psychology  and  for  the  theory  of  knowl- 
edge to  discuss,  see  the  following  works  of  the  author  :  "  Psychology,  Descriptive 
and  Explanatory,"  chaps,  xi.,  xiv.,  xxi.,  and  xxvi. ;  "  Philosophy  of  Mind," 
chaps,  iii.  and  iv.  ;  and  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  chaps,  v.-vii.  and  xiii. 


124  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

to  be  inhibited,  that  we  discover  the  root,  in  experience,  from 
which  the  conception  of  substance  springs  forth. 

But  this  peculiar  phase,  or  aspect,  of  every  cognitive  expe- 
rience is  never  the  whole  of  any  particular  act  or  process  of 
knowledge.  Mere  self-felt  activity  would  never  amount  to  a 
knowledge  of  Self  ;  mere  recognition  of  the  inhibiting  of  this 
activity,  together  with  the  attribution  of  an  analogous  activity 
to  some  external  object,  would  never  amount  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  a  Thing.  For  on  the  side  of  knowledge  no  example 
of  such  a  complex  mental  process  is  ever  "  mere,"  or  "  bare : " 
and  on  the  side  of  reality,  as  we  have  repeatedly  seen,  no 
particular  thing  is  ever  known  as  mere  or  bare  being.  On 
the  subjective  side,  indeed,  it  is  the  self-activity  involved  in 
all  knowing  which  accounts  for  my  positing  "  that "  /  am ; 
and  it  is  the  activity  recognized  as  centering  in  the  object 
which  limits  and  inhibits  my  self-activity,  that  accounts  for 
my  positing  4<  that "  It  is.  This  is  because  every  cognitive 
judgment  is  a  deed  of  will ;  and  its  issue  is  the  affirmation  of 
some  reality  whose  very  essence  is  recognized  as  will.  In  a 
word  :  "  Knowledge  is  born  of  thinking  which  has  arrived  at  the 
pausing  place  of  a  judgment — a  finished  product  of  synthetic 
activity. "  *  For  neither  will  alone,  nor  intellect  alone,  nor 
feeling  alone  —  if  it  were  not  an  antiquated  and  even  absurd 
manner  of  speaking,  to  apply  the  word  "  alone  "  to  the  work- 
ing of  any  of  these  so-called  faculties  —  could  ever  result  in 
a  genuine  act  of  cognitive  judgment.  As  there  is  no  will 
"  alone,"  and  no  feeling  "  alone,"  in  any  knowing  process ;  so 
there  is  no  pure  being,  or  thing-in-itself,  existent  in  the  world 
of  concrete  realities.  On  the  other  hand,  as  there  is  no  intel- 
lect which  can  alone  achieve  the  result  of  making  a  cognitive 
judgment,  so  there  are  no  qualities  which,  without  "being 
posited,"  can  combine  into  the  complex  existence  of  an  actual 
Thing.  Particular  beings  are  not  known  to  the  mind  as  mere 
bundles  of  qualities;  for  its  act  of  knowledge  is  not  mere 

1  Quoted  from  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  p.  146. 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND   THEIR  QUALITIES       125 

intellection.  But  they  are  not  known  to  the  mind  as  unre- 
lated or  pure  beings ;  for  the  mind  cannot  will  or  feel  them  to 
be  at  all  without  discriminating  their  qualities  and  relations. 
This  synthetic  voluntary  activity  of  every  cognitive  (that  is, 
essentially  trans-subjective)  judgment  is  the  genesis  of  the  cate- 
gory of  substance. 

Having  once  recognized  that  fact  of  knowledge,  or  rather 
that  aspect  of  every  fact  of  knowledge,  in  which  the  concep- 
tion of  substance  has  its  genesis,  nothing  further  can  be  said 
about  it  for  its  more  complete  definition.  Strictly  speaking, 
all  the  categories  are  essentially  indefinable.  They  are  them- 
selves those  fundamental  forms  of  cognition  which  by  their 
different  particular  combinations  and  modifications  make  all 
definition  possible.  The  rather  should  we  say  that  they  are 
themselves,  as  men  think  them,  the  abstractions  derived  from 
the  cognitions  of  many  particular  minds  and  things  which 
^xist  in  an  indefinite  variety  of  concrete  relations  and  condi- 
tions. This  indefinable  character  belongs  especially  to  the 
category  of  substance  —  if  we  may  continue  the  use  for  a 
while  longer  of  so  obnoxious  a  word.  The  reason  for  its 
especially  vague  and  shifty  use,  and  its  peculiarly  provoking 
resistance  to  all  attempts  at  analysis,  is  now  apparent.  This 
conception  is  not  given  to  the  mind  in  the  form  of  any  par- 
ticular content  of  consciousness.  Its  genesis  is  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  fact  that  all  knowledge  involves  self-felt  activity, 
inhibited  by  a  non-self  into  which  we  project,  by  a  necessary 
and  natural  analogy,  a  centre  of  forth-putting  and  resisting 
activity. 

In  discussing  further  the  validity  of  the  category  of  sub- 
stance we  may  now  make  a  certain  convenient  substitution. 
For  this  X,  in  which  the  common  people,  the  men  of  science, 
and  the  adepts  in  the  logical  analysis  of  fundamental  concep- 
tions, all  alike  believe,  we  may  substitute  self-activity.  By 
this  phrase  is  meant  such  activity  as  is  an  immediate  datum 
of  every  act  of  perception  or  of  self-consciousness,  so  far  as 


126 


A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 


the  life  of  the  Self  is  concerned ;  and  which  is,  of  necessity, 
in  the  very  act  of  knowledge  also  attributed  to  every  external 
object  regarded  as  real.  This  question  now  follows :  What  is 
there  in  the  known  constitution  of  the  mind,  and  what  in  the 
known  constitution  of  things,  which  warrants  the  application 
of  this  conception  to  the  reality  of  either,  or  of  both  ? 

That  the  category  of  substance,  as  thus  described  by  an 
appeal  to  what  is  universal  in  human  cognitive  experience,  is 
applicable  to  the  reality  of  the  mind,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
Indeed,  to  answer  such  a  question  negatively  would  be  to 
affirm  and  to  deny  at  the  same  time.  The  consciousness  of 
the  plain  man,  of  the  psychologist,  and  of  the  metaphysician, 
agrees  in  testimony  upon  this  point.  Those  critics  of  Descartes 
who  facetiously  affirmed  that  it  was  just  as  valid  an  argument 
to  say,  "  I  walk,  therefore  I  am,"  as  to  say  "  I  think,  therefore 
I  am,"  were  unquestionably  in  the  right  if  "walking"  be  re- 
garded as  a  genuine  cognitive  experience  with  one's  Self. 
When  I  am,  whatever  the  specific  content  of  consciousness 
may  be,  so  much  alive  as  that  I  know  I  am  alive,  then  my 
knowledge  admits  of  no  doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  its  object. 
Actually,  no  individual  experience  with  the  Self  is  ever  given, 
except  as  determined  content-wise.  But  every  manner  of 
content  must  be  experienced  as  the  particular  way  in  which, 
for  the  present  moment,  my  self-existence  is  actually  deter- 
mined. And  this  self-existence,  however  determined  in 
particular,  must  always  be  known  and  thought  of,  as  self- 
determined,  although  in  dependence  upon  the  influence  of 
other  beings.  All  the  language  in  which  men  speak  of 
themselves,  whether  ignorant  and  savage  or  intelligent  and 
cultivated,  and  whether  they  speak  from  the  practical,  the 
scientific,  or  the  philosophical  point  of  view,  illustrates  this 
fundamental  truth.  Language  about  human  self-conscious 
life,  and  about  the  concrete  realities  -of  human  daily  living,  is 
intelligible  in  no  other  way.  The  answer  of  every  man  to  the 
question,  What  do  you  think  ?  or,  How  do  you  feel  ?  or,  What 


PARTICULAR   BEINGS   AND   THEIR   QUALITIES       127 

are  you  planning  ?  must  always  take  the  form  of  "  positing  " 
the  self-activity  (though  related  to  and  conditioned  upon 
some  object)  of  the  "I  am." 

No  form  of  reflective  thinking  upon  the  nature  of  mind  ever 
succeeds  in  escaping  virtually  the  same  conclusion.  Physics 
and  psychology,  or  workaday  experience,  can  explain  why  I 
think,  or  feel,  or  will,  this  rather  than  something  else.  And 
such  explanation,  either  popular  or  scientific,  seems  somewhat 
to  relieve  from  mystery  our  questioning  after  the  "  what, "  in 
particular,  of  human  experience.  But  the  incomprehensible 
"core"  of  every  individual's  being  is  not  to  be  reached  by 
solving  such  problems  as  why  I  see  this  and  not  that ;  or  why 
I  hear  a  sound  having  the  pitch  c l  instead  of  c  2.  That  I  see, 
hear,  taste,  and  smell,  —  that  I  have  any  cognitive  experience 
at  all  —  this  is  the  unexplained  mystery,  the  irresolvable 
datum  of  my  being.  And  when  the  metaphysical  analyst  is 
invited  to  approach  this  problem,  he  can,  of  necessity,  do 
nothing  with  it  beyond  pointing  to  the  same  ultimate  datum, 
and  perhaps  making  his  appeal  to  self-consciousness  in  some- 
what clearer  terms. 

Every  man,  in  every  cognitive  experience,  when  he  makes 
himself,  as  the  knower,  the  object  of  reflection,  recognizes  this 
"  doing "  —  self-felt  and  yet  inhibited  and  determined  by  an 
object  —  as  the  point  at  which  all  analysis  must  stop,  and  in 
which  all  experience  has  its  roots.  The  disputes  of  psycholo- 
gists and  metaphysicians  over  this  point  are  mere  logomachies, 
which  by  their  very  character  demonstrate  the  same  primary 
and  indubitable  fact.  Striving  to  express  it  in  both  its  sub- 
jective and  its  objective  aspects,  we  may  speak  of  it,  from  the 
psychological  standpoint,  as  at  once  active  consciousness  and 
consciousness  of  activity.  Adding  a  touch  of  metaphysics  to 
the  psychology  we  may  understand  the  talk  about  "  positing," 
etc.,  in  which  German  philosophy  has  abounded.  It  is  this 
central  "moment"  in  our  stream  of  consciousness  which 
Teichmuller,  for  example,  explains  as  a  "  positing  conscious- 


128  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

ness "  (das  setzende  Bewusstseyri),  whose  other  side  is  a 
"consciousness  of  positing"  (das  Bewusstseyn  der  Setzung). 
Generalizing,  and  so  forming  one  of  those  fascinating  and 
yet  dangerous  abstractions  in  which  metaphysics  abounds,  we 
recognize  with  Schopenhauer  and  Hartmann,  fact  of  will,  bare 
will,  as  the  solid  core  of  being,  —  the  essential  and  the  actual 
of  existence,  inseparably  united.  Interpreting  Kant's  doctrine 
of  Ding-an-sich,  both  positively  and  negatively,  we  get  many 
indications  of  a  recognition  of  the  same  truth  in  it.  Both  the 
intense  vitality  and  also  the  meagreness  of  Fichte's  philos- 
ophy come  from  his  greatly  emphasizing  this  experience  of 
the  soul  with  itself. 

In  a  word,  that  form  of  man's  experience,  in  which  are 
found  the  roots  that,  when  developed  by  abstract  thinking, 
bear  the  product  of  this  most  evanescent  and  intangible  of  the 
categories  ("Substance,"  "Pure  Being,"  "  Ding-an-sich  "),  is  an 
actualization  of  the  same  category  in  its  application  to  the  Self. 
The  conception  of  "  being-real  "  could  never  orginate  without 
the  experience  of  a  conscious  self-activity  inhibited  and 
brought  to  an  arrest  by  other  activity.  In  this  experience, 
however,  we  immediately  and  indubitably  know  the  Self,  the 
knower,  as  a  "  being-real."  Behind,  beneath,  above,  around, 
this  fact  of  experience,  reflective  thinking  cannot  get.  It 
defies  further  analysis,  and  it  needs  none. 

If  now  the  valid  application  of  the  same  category  to  the 
reality  of  things  be  questioned,  one  can  arrive  at  a  satisfac- 
tory answer  only  by  use  of  the  principle  of  analogy.  The 
difference  which  we  wish  to  signify  by  the  word  "  analogy  " 
is  dependent  upon  the  difference  between  the  genesis  and  de- 
velopment of  the  knowledge  of  things  and  the  genesis  and 
development  of  the  knowledge  of  self.  It  is  instructive  to 
notice  how  that  clear  but  not  profound  thinker,  John  Stuart 
Mill,  emphasized  this  difference  in  his  twofold  definition  of 
u  substance."  The  substance  of  the  mind  is  said  to  consist 
in  its  being  a  "  subject "  of  states,  in  "  the  scholastic  sense  of 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES       129 

the  term."  It  is  a  veritable  but  sentient  "  that-which."  But 
the  substance  of  things  consists  in  their  being  an  "  unknown 
external  cause  "  to  which  the  mind  refers  its  own  sensations. 
It  will  be  shown  in  due  time  that  the  conception  answering 
to  the  words  "  being  a  cause  "  has  no  meaning  that  does  not 
involve  the  same  experience  with  ourselves  and  with  things, 
in  which  the  category  of  substance  arises.  It  is  now  to  be 
noticed,  however,  that,  according  to  Mill,  this  "  external " 
(or  non-self)  cause  is  unknown  by  the  mind ;  but  the  mind 
knows  itself  as  actually  the  subject  of  its  own  states.  A 
certain  superior  immediateness  and  trustworthiness  of  knowl- 
edge as  to  the  substantial  reality  of  the  mind  seems  to  be 
admitted  in  all  this.  And  the  admission  is  warranted  by  the 
facts  of  experience. 

It  remains  now  to  show  how  all  human  knowledge  as  to 
the  reality  of  external  things  pivots  itself  upon  that  central 
act  of  "  positing "  which  attributes  to  each  object  of  knowl- 
edge a  self -activity,  inhibited  and  determined,  however,  by 
the  self-activity  of  other  objects.  When  we  say  "  self- 
activity  ,"  we  mean  activity  that  is  analogous  to  that  which 
we  feel  ourselves  to  have,  as  the  very  core  and  centre  of  our 
own  being  at  all.  This  "attribution"  -or  "reference,"  to 
use  the  term  of  John  Stuart  Mill  —  is  not  an  inference  or  a 
logical  affair,  in  its  more  primitive  forms  of  realization.  It 
is  itself  an  activity,  which  enters  into  the  very  life  of  every 
cognitive  judgment,  in  such  a  way  as  that,  without  it  no  form 
of  logical  inference  could  possibly  take  place.  This  much  is 
true  in  the  claim  of  Helmholtz  and  others  that  a  certain  kind 
of  inference  enters  into  every  completed  act  of  perception  by 
the  senses.  The  psychology  of  the  whole  subject  need  not 
occupy  us  anew  in  this  connection  ;  it  is  enough  to  notice 
that  the  attribution  of  such  a  "  core  "  of  being  belongs  in  an 
essential  way  to  the  cognition  of  every  particular  thing. 

How  the  physical  sciences  deal  with  this  primitive  view  of 
all  things  as  both  doing  and  having  something  done  to  them, 


130  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

after  the  analogy  of  the  experience  of  the  Self  with  the  objects 
of  its  perception,  will  be  shown  in  detail  in  the  proper  con- 
nections. The  current  somewhat  shifty  conceptions  of  Force, 
Energy,  Causation,  etc.,  as  applied  to  things  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  Inertia,  Mass,  etc.,  as  applied  to  the  same  things  on 
the  other  hand,  all  involve  the  use  of  this  category.  Action, 
and  reaction,  impenetrability  and  elasticity,  etc.,  involve  the 
same  conception.  At  the  basis  of  all  the  modern  refinements 
of  the  physical  sciences  lies  this  same  notable  and  impressive 
experience.  In  all  man's  workaday  as  well  as  his  scientific 
commerce  with  physical  objects,  they  are  known  as  centres  of 
an  activity  that  resists  and  of  an  impressibility  that  receives,, 
the  activity  of  other  objects,  including  the  self  of  the  knower. 
The  "  substantiality,"  the  "  being  real,"  of  every  particular 
Thing,  consists  in  just  this.  Our  knowing  it  as  substantial 
and  real  necessarily  involves  the  creation  of  this  vital  analogue. 
In  order  to  illustrate  the  fidelity  to  all  human  experience  of 
the  propositions  just  made,  it  is  necessary  at  present  simply 
to  consider  how  men  establish  for  themselves,  or  for  others, 
the  actuality  of  any  particular  Thing.  In  all  the  simpler,  non- 
contested  cases,  he  who  is  not  blind  has  only  to  look  and 
see.  If,  however,  he  will  not  even  look,  he  cannot  see ;  and  that 
particular  visible  thing  cannot  become  known  as  a  reality  to 
him.  But  merely  looking  involves  the  minimum  of  self-activity, 
in  its  inhibition  and  subsequent,  although  nearly  instantaneous, 
determination  by  the  object  which  seems  to  give  to  the  mind 
the  cognition  of  an  actual  thing.  The  object  is,  "  content-wise," 
a  group  of  visual  symbols  into  which,  because  of  the  excite- 
ment and  arrest  of  attention,  I  infuse  the  trans-subjective 
being  which  every  reality  must  have.  So  interested  am  I, 
as  a  rule,  in  reaching  the  practical  results  of  my  cognitive 
activity  that  the  essential  nature  and  significance  of  the 
activity  is  not  recognized  at  all.  But  now  let  any  doubt 
arise :  Is  that  object  which  I  see  a  really  existent  Thing  ? 
To  settle  this  doubt,  I  will  to  look,  and  to  look  more  atten- 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES       131 

tively  ;  or  I  will  to  look  again  and  again.  Or,  still  further,  I 
will  to  put  myself  into  other  relations  toward  the  object  (as 
of  nearer  distance  or  clearer  light),  in  order  that  it  may  more 
decisively  determine  my  conscious  state.  Suppose,  however, 
that  after  using  all  the  resources  of  perception  by  sight,  the 
doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  my  visual  object  still  remains. 
Then  I  will  to  bring  my  other  senses  into  relations  of  action 
and  reaction  with  the  same  object.  I  strive  to  grasp  it 
with  my  hands,  or  to  embrace  it  in  my  arms,  or  to  push 
against  it  with  all  my  bodily  force.  When  this  intensifying 
of  the  consciousness  of  doing  something  is  accompanied  — 
in  some  manner  pari  passu  —  by  an  increase  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  being  resisted  by  that  which  I  cannot  identify  as  an 
object  with  myself,  then  I  "  know  "  that  this  particular  object 
is  a  "  real  Thing."  It  has  stood  the  last  test  of  substantiality 
which  immediate  and  primary  cognitive  experience  can  apply 
to  it.  It  has  met  my  self -felt  activity  in  a  way  to  compel  me 
to  recognize  it  as  a  centre  of  resisting  activity,  after  the 
analogy  of  a  true  and  actual  Self. 

If,  now,  this  kind  of  sensuous  evidence  fails  or  gives  a  con- 
tradictory voice  at  any  step  along  the  line  of  progress  in 
settling,  by  an  appeal  to  perceptive  experience,  one's  doubts  a& 
to  the  real  being  of  the  object-thing,  one  may  resort  to  mere 
argument.  Then  the  judgment  which  affirms  or  denies  reality 
for  the  object  is  made  to  depend  on  yet  more  remote  and! 
doubtful  grounds.  By  almost  imperceptible  degrees  this 
judgment  may  be  made  to  fade  away  into  the  misty  regions 
of  mere  opinion  or  conjecture.  The  Thing  thus  loses  the 
44  core  "  of  its  reality,  because  the  mind  can  no  longer  get  its 
answer  into  the  form  of  a  modification  of  active  consciousness 
by  an  inhibitory  or  determining  activity  which  centres  in  that 
particular  external  object.  On  "  general  grounds  "  of  intellect 
one  may  argue  one's  way  to  the  derived  knowledge  of,  or 
belief  in,  the  real  being  of  many  things  which  never  become 
objects  of  perceptive  experience.  For  us  who  see,  there  are 


132  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

many  things  known  as  actual  to  sight,  that  are  not  actual  to 
touch ;  for  the  blind  man  none  of  his  tactual  and  muscular 
realities  are  things  conceivable  as  real  to  sight.  For  in  his 
case,  things  of  other  men's  sight  can  neither  do  anything  to 
him,  nor  receive  any  impressions  by  activities  that  make 
themselves  felt,  as  his  own,  within  his  consciousness. 

If  now  the  question  be  raised,  What  further  is  it  for  any 
particular  Thing  just  to  be  ?  —  that  is,  to  validate  its  claim 
to  actual  existence,  irrespective  of  any  definite  form  of  exis- 
tence—  no  answer  can  possibly  be  given.  The  instant  any 
being  ceases  to  be  experienced  as  in  this  commerce  of  active 
and  passive  relations,  within  the  system  of  beings,  it  forfeits 
its  entire  appreciable  claim  to  actuality.  Nor  can  we  imag- 
ine or  think  of  it  as  a  concrete  reality,  unless  we  mentally 
posit  this  "  core  "  of  its  being  after  the  analogy  of  our  own 
"  self-existence."  Moreover,  every  bit  of  evidence  which 
comes  to  senses,  to  imagination,  or  to  intellect,  as  to  "  what " 
any  particular  thing  actually  is,  aggregates  itself  about  this 
central  position.  Speaking  in  a  figure  of  speech  which,  how- 
ever, goes  straight  to  the  heart  of  all  human  experience  with 
physical  realities :  knowing  things  involves  a  positing  of  them 
as  centres  of  the  forthputting  and  the  reception  of  activity. 
It  is  not  simply  this ;  for  knowing  is  not  bare,  indeterminate 
activity ;  neither  are  things  mere  centres  of  activity.  As 
has  already  been  shown,  every  concrete  reality  is  an  actual 
harmony  of  all  the  categories. 

With  no  other  need  of  systematic  metaphysics  have  its 
students  striven  more  earnestly  and  yet  unsuccessfully  than 
with  the  need  of  satisfactory  principles  of  differentiation. 
Schopenhauer  found  these  principles  in  the  categories  of 
Space,  Time,  and  Causation ;  but  he  was  never  able  to  show 
with  the  least  degree  of  satisfaction,  how  these  three  prin- 
ciples may  be  either  derived  from,  or  reconciled  with  the 
unity  of  a  bare  and  blind  Will.  It  is  much  too  early  in  our 
discussion  to  consider  how  we  propose  to  secure  the  satisfac- 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES       133 

tion  of  this  need.  But  without  recognition  of  its  existence 
the  metaphysician  cannot  even  refer,  however  vaguely,  to 
particular  real  beings.  Whatever  the  human  mind  may 
know,  or  conjecture,  about  the  Unity  of  Reality,  about  the 
One,  the  Absolute,  the  World-Ground,  —  or  any  other  term 
philosophers  have  chosen  for  this  unitary  conception, — 
man's  first-hand,  verifiable,  and  common  knowledge  is  the 
knowledge  of  particular  existences.  For  every  human  mind 
knowledge  is,  and  remains,  knowledge  of  the  self  and  of  other 
concrete  beings, — -their  qualities,  relations,  and  transactions. 
From  this  knowledge  of  particulars  all  theory  of  reality  must 
set  out ;  to  this  knowledge  all  theory  must  be  ready  to  return, 
for  its  correction  and  its  testing,  again  and  yet  again.  Real- 
ity may  be  some  sort  of  a  Unity ;  and  there  may  be  One 
Absolute  World-Ground.  But  there  are  no  known  things  in 
general,  and  no  known  minds  in  general. 

Now  —  as  will  appear  throughout  the  next  succeeding  chap- 
ters —  all  the  categories  afford  both  differentiating  and  uni- 
fying conceptions.  But  the  conception  derived  from  that 
"  moment "  of  every  cognitive  experience  which  we  have 
already  coupled  with  the  category  of  substance,  requires  a 
brief  treatment  in  this  place.  We  will  call  it  "  Quality." 

The  ground  may  be  cleared  for  such  brief  criticism  of  this 
conception  of  Quality  as  will  be  necessary  to  our  purpose,  by 
a  series  of  negative  propositions.  These  denials  all  follow 
from  the  attempt  to  treat  the  conception  as  entitled  to  a 
place  among  the  categories.  And,  first,  the  qualities  which 
distinguish  particular  beings  from  one  another  are  never  in 
fact  separable  from  those  beings.  Qualities  that  are  not 
"of"  things  do  not  really  exist;  but  neither  do  qualities 
"off"  things,  —  as  it  were.  Language  adopts  all  manner 
of  qualifying  terms  as  though  they  were  themselves  realities 
in  need  of  qualification.  For  example :  "  Green  is  one  of 
the  three  fundamental  colors,  having  a  central  position  in 
the  chromatic  scale,  so  many  vibrations  in  a  second,  and 


134  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

such  intensity,  degree  of  purity,  etc."  The  full  significance 
of  this  way  of  expressing  experience  can  only  appear  in  the 
light  of  a  further  analysis  of  the  categories  involved;  these 
are  relation,  number,  time,  magnitude,  force,  etc.  Scanty 
reflection,  however,  is  needed  to  make  obvious  the  truth, 
that  the  quality  of  greenness,  or  of  being  green,  is  not  actu- 
ally separable  from  the  particular  beings  which  it  qualifies. 
Subjectively  regarded,  this  quality  is  really  my  sensation,  or 
yours,  or  that  of  some  other  sentient  being.  Objectively 
regarded,  from  the  popular  point  of  view,  it  belongs  to  the 
object  thing,  —  to  the  grass,  or  the  glass,  or  the  cloth,  I  see; 
and  objectively  regarded,  from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  it 
has  been  provided  with  a  "  subject,"  to  hold  and  possess  it,  — 
viz.,  the  wonderful  and  mysterious  being  of  the  ether. 

Neither  —  to  deny  again  the  value  of  certain  metaphysical 
abstractions  —  can  any  single  quality  be  regarded  as  sufficing 
to  give  the  separateness  of  a  reality  to  any  object.  In  the 
metaphysical  theory  of  Herbart,  the  different  categories  were 
regarded  as  mutually  exclusive  ;  and  the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  being  must  be  found  in  regarding  all  concrete  realities 
as  consisting  of  innumerable  simple  essences,  each  with  its 
own  single  characteristic  quality.  But  we  have  seen  that  the 
reality  of  every  particular  being  depends  upon  its  somehow 
harmonizing  the  categories ;  and  we,  in  fact,  do  not  know  and 
never  can  know  any  thing  as  having  only  one  quality.  The 
rather  should  we  say  that  the  qualities  of  every  particular 
being  seem  to  be  indefinitely  numerous ;  and  that  the  more 
we  know  of  ourselves  and  of  things,  the  more  does  the  list  of 
known  qualifications  become  enlarged.  All  our  improved 
means,  both  physical  and  chemical,  for  observing  the  qualities 
of  atoms  and  of  masses  of  matter,  whether  inorganic  or  alive, 
demonstrate  the  truth  that  the  individual  existences  of  the 
world  are  not  differentiated  by  the  possession  of  single  qual- 
ities peculiar  to  each.  And  yet  the  conception  of  a  Unity  of 
all  things  has  been  confirmed  thereby. 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES       135 

Neither,  again,  can  the  qualities  of  particular  beings  be 
considered  as  statical  conditions  or  rigid  states  of  existence ; 
and  so  inconsistent  with  change  or  growth  in  these  same 
things.  It  is  easy  enough,  indeed,  to  discover  that  the  very 
reality  of  some  things  depends  upon  their  growth.  An  actual 
tree,  or  chick,  or  man  cannot  be,  without  coming  to  be ; 
the  actuality  of  such  beings  depends  upon  growth.  But  a 
profounder  reflection  shows  this  to  be  really  true  of  all  parti- 
cular beings.  Their  qualities  are,  indeed,  "  of "  them,  and 
may  not  be  taken  "off"  them;  but  they  are  not  like  the 
irremovable  husk,  or  shell,  of  their  being,  of  which  the 
kernel  or  "  core "  is  the  substance.  Rigid  substance  +  un- 
changing qualities,  is  not  =  a  real  "Thing." 

And,  finally,  we  cannot  express  to  ourselves  what  is  meant 
toy  the  qualities  which  distinguish  any  particular  being,  with- 
out making  use  of  forms  of  experience  from  which  other 
qualifying  conceptions  are  derived.  Qualities  of  any  one 
being  always  imply  relations  between  two  or  more  beings. 
The  very  notion  of  qualities  implies  a  reference  to  causal 
influences,  and  causal  relations  so  called.  And  through  the 
doors  opened  by  these  categories  we  are  led  out  into  the 
broad  universe  of  being,  under  the  all-embracing  sky,  by 
every  attempt  to  consider  how  any  single  real  being  can 
possibly  be  distinguished  as  such.  This  leading  forth  of 
human  reflection  from  the  particular  Thing  —  no  matter 
what  it  may  be  —  to  the  universal  Cosmos,  of  which  it  is 
"  part,"  rests  upon  a  scientific  basis  that  is  growing  broader 
and  more  solid  every  day.  And  if  the  infinite  wealth  and 
mystery  of  particular  tilings  is  being  emphasized  by  science, 
with  its  increased  specialization,  the  avenues  to  knowledge 
of  that  mysterious  Infinite  in  which  all  particular  beings 
have  their  Being  are  made  more  numerous. 

"  Raise  thou  the  stone  and  find  me  there ; 
Cleave  thou  the  wood  and  there  am  I. " 


136  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Suppose,  however,  that  a  clear  and  positive  answer  be 
demanded  to  the  inquiry  :  What  is  it  really  to  be  the  quality 
of  any  particular  being  ?  We  sort  things  out  by  their  quali- 
ties —  either  for  practical  or  for  scientific  purposes,  and  it  is 
by  knowing  the  more  permanent  or  persistently  recurrent 
qualities  that  we  learn  what  to  expect  from  other  beings  and 
what  we  may  hope  to  do  with  them.  In  a  word,  by  their 
qualities  we  know  '•'  what "  things  are.  But  this  only  tells  us 
what  use  we  make  of  our  knowledge  of  the  qualities  of  par- 
ticular beings ;  it  does  not  tell  us  what  qualities  really  are. 

In  seeking  for  suggestions  of  the  correct  and  final  answer 
to  the  metaphysical  inquiry  just  raised,  we  are  justified  in 
going  straight  to  our  most  immediate  and  indubitable  knowl- 
edge. I  know,  to  some  extent,  what  some  of  my  own  quali- 
ties really  are,  —  at  least,  if  I  will  not  refine  overmuch,  or  try 
to  get  down  below  or  around  behind  the  evidence.  My  quali- 
ties, as  immediately  and  indubitably  known  to  me,  are  the 
modes  of  the  behavior  of  my  Self  —  both  as  doing  and  as 
suffering  in  my  changing  relations  to  other  beings.  By  self- 
knowledge  I  am  "  qualified,"  or  "  particularized,"  in  an  in- 
definite variety  of  minutely  different  ways.  The  varying 
modes  of  my  doing  and  suffering,  of  my  complex  active  and 
passive  experience,  in  their  peculiar  combinations  and  group- 
ing, serve  to  distinguish  me  from  all  other  beings.  Others 
may  "sort"  me  out  by  knowing  sufficiently  well  what  these 
modes  of  behavior  are  ;  they  are  the  important  items  in  the 
conceptual  knowledge  of  my  Self.  I  "  sort "  myself  out  in  the 
same  way.  And  the  actuality  corresponding  to  all  this  can- 
not be  doubted  ;  because  description  here  is,  so  far  forth, 
only  the  expression  of  what  is  realized  in  my  cognitive 
experience  with  myself. 

But  what  meaning  must  be  attached  to  such  a  phrase  as 
"  being  the  quality  of  an  external  thing"  ;  and,  What  is  it  in 
reality  to  be  the  quality  of  any  such  thing  ?  The  first  answer 
which  one  is  tempted  to  give  to  these  inquiries  turns  back  for 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES       13T 

an  appeal  to  the  same  cognitive  self -consciousness.  But  this, 
of  course,  can  only  tell  us  what  are  the  qualities  of  that  par- 
ticular thing,  as  related  to  me.  For  example,  the  book  which 
lies  upon  the  table,  is  greenish  in  color,  is  so  large,  is  heavy, 
roughish  in  look  and  feel,  etc.  But  here  physics  and  psy- 
chology, from  their  different  established  points  of  standing 
may  join  hands  and  proclaim  that  such  descriptions  of  the 
qualities  of  things  are  not  ontological  at  all.  The  qualities 
of  things,  regarded  as  "  appearances  "  in  our  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, are  by  no  means  copies  of  the  qualities  which 
really  belong  to  the  things  themselves.  And  this  is  as  true 
of  the  so-called  primary  qualities  of  things  as  of  those 
qualities  which  have,  of  old,  been  recognized  as  secondary 
and  derived.  Thus  the  physico-chemical  sciences  have  found 
it  necessary  to  devise  an  entire  system  of  non-sensible  quali- 
ties which  actually  belong  to  things ;  and  which  thus  con- 
stitute the  conditions  or  causes  of  the  same  things  appearing 
to  us  as  endowed  with  their  immediately  known  qualities. 
That  is  to  say,  the  physico-chemical  reality  of  things  is  made, 
in  part,  the  explanation,  of  the  psychical  reality  of  things. 
What  things  are  determines  how  things  shall  seem  to  us. 

Now  the  fact  just  mentioned  offers  a  very  instructive,  but 
somewhat  unsatisfactory  answer,  to  our  inquiry  as  to  the 
nature,  in  reality,  of  the  category  of  Quality.  So  far  as  things 
are  concerned,  this  category  seems  now  to  have  a  twofold 
significance.  For  the  popular  consciousness,  and  indeed  for 
every  man's  consciousness  so  long  as  he  takes  the  popular 
point  of  view,  the  immediately  known  qualities  of  things  are 
not  their  real  qualities.  Science  tells  us,  however,  what 
these  real  qualities  are.  And  the  real  qualities  are  totally 
unlike  the  immediately  known  qualities ;  but  the  former 
stand  to  the  latter  in  the  relation  of  cause  to  effect. 

The  mind  is  loath  to  have  its  metaphysical  inquiry  as  to  the 
actual  nature  of  the  qualities  of  things  end  in  this  disap- 
pointing way.  It  continues  to  ask  how  we  are  to  think  of 


138  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  real  qualities,  which  science  reveals  to  the  eye  of  imagi- 
nation, as  related  to  the  things  whose  qualities  they  are.  And 
no  other  answer  to  this  inquiry  seems  possible  than  the  one 
which  follows  the  necessary  analogy  of  our  experience  with 
ourselves.  Things  really  have  qualities ;  although  the  con- 
jectures of  modern  science  as  to  what  these  qualities  really  are 
may  be  as  far  from  a  correct  copy  as  are  the  visual  and  tactual 
representations  of  the  man  who  has  never  listened  to  the 
marvellous  descriptions  of  modern  science.  These  qualities 
are  really  nothing  other  than  the  actual  modes  of  the  doing 
and  suffering  of  the  things  themselves.  But  this  is  to  con- 
ceive of  things  anthropomorphically.  Granted ;  it  is  indeed 
to  conceive  of  them  —  or  rather  to  know  them  —  at  least  so 
far  forth,  after  the  analogy  of  the  self-known  Self. 

Any  particular  being,  then,  —  whether  thing  or  mind,  —  in 
order  to  claim  a  place  in  reality,  must  have  its  own  group  of 
qualities ;  but  these  qualities  are,  really,  only  its  character- 
istic ways  of  acting  and  reacting  in  varying  relations  to  other 
particular  beings.  And  these  qualities  are  kept  together,  in 
our  thought  and  in  reality,  by  some  kind  of  a  bond.  It  was 
this  latter  conception  which  was  discussed  in  the  earlier 
part  of  this  chapter. 

To  know  that  any  particular  thing  really  is,  it  is  not  enough 
merely  to  observe,  to  discriminate,  to  think,  —  so  long  as 
such  forms  of  experience  are  regarded  as  merely  passive 
content  of  consciousness.  To  posit  the  existence  of  things 
as  a  matter  of  knowledge,  it  is  necessary  to  experience  a  felt 
inhibition  of  one's  self -activity.  But  to  know  what  any  par- 
ticular thing  is,  one  must  observe,  discriminate,  think,  the 
various  modifications  of  one's  conscious  content ;  and  one 
must  attribute  these  to  the  thing  as  its  qualities. 

When  I  ask,  What,  in  reality,  are  the  qualities  of  that  par- 
ticular Thing,  considered  not  as  appearances  to  me  but  as 
actually  belonging  to  the  thing  ?  only  one  answer  can  be 
given.  They  are  the  forms  of  the  experience  and  of  the 


PARTICULAR  BEINGS  AND  THEIR  QUALITIES       139 

doing  of  that  thing.  If  I  regard  them  as  forms  of  the  "  ex- 
perience "  of  the  thing,  I  take  the  point  of  view  in  which  I 
am  myself  conscious  rather  of  being  first  acted  upon,  and 
then  of  reacting.  If  I  regard  them  as  forms  of  "  doing,"  I 
take  the  point  of  view  from  which  I  am  conscious  of  acting 
and  then  of  observing  changes  in  other  beings  which  I  inter- 
pret as  results  of  my  acting.  Both  points  of  view  get  their 
meaning  from  knowledge  of  the  Self  and  from  experience 
with  its  many  forms  of  doing  and  suffering  in  the  commerce 
of  life  with  Things. 

Other  distinctions  in  qualities  —  such  as  those  between 
the  primary  and  the  secondary,  the  essential  and  the  acci- 
dental, the  permanent  and  the  transitory  —  need  not  concern 
us  just  now.  These  distinctions  are  all  species  under  the 
one  genus  whose  nature  our  metaphysical  analysis  and  criti- 
cism has  attempted  to  disclose.  As  regards  the  central  prob- 
lem, What  is  it  actually  to  be  the  quality  of  any  particular 
being?  these  distinctions  in  kinds  of  qualities  are  not  im- 
portant. We  shall  find  them  important  subsequently,  when 
we  raise  the  question  concerning  the  limit  of  such  qualities 
as  must  be  grouped,  or  placed  in  succession  in  order  to  main- 
tain the  reality  of  any  mind  or  thing.  Meantime,  the  dis- 
cussions of  this  chapter  may  be  summed  up,  in  a  partial  and 
preliminary  way,  as  warranting  the  following  conclusion : 
To  be  a  real  Being,  with  actual  qualities,  is  to  be  what  I 
know  my  Self  to  be,  —  namely,  capable  of  initiating  and  of 
experiencing  changes  that  are  attributable  to  some  subject  or 
"  central  point  of  attachment,"  conceived  of  after  the  analogy 
of  a  conscious  Will. 

But  such  a  conclusion  as  the  foregoing  is  itself  not  the  end, 
but  rather  the  beginning,  of  yet  more  careful  metaphysical 
analysis  and  criticism.  It  leads  us  at  once  to  discuss  the 
forms  of  knowledge,  recognized  as  forms  of  reality,  that  fur- 
nish topics  for  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER   VI 

CHANGE  AND  BECOMING 

THE  conclusions  of  modern  science  have  sufficiently  avenged 
any  dishonor  done  in  past  centuries  to  the  reputation  of 
Heraclitus,  that  first  great  apostle  of  the  all-inclusive  reality 
of  Change.  "  There  is  nothing  abiding,  either  in  the  world 
or  in  its  constitution  taken  as  a  whole.  Not  only  individual 
things,  but  also  the  Universe  as  a  whole,  are  involved  in  per- 
petual, ceaseless  revolution  ;  all  flows,  and  nothing  abides. 
We  cannot  say  of  things  that  they  are  ;  they  become  only, 
and  pass  away  in  the  ever  changing  play  of  the  movement 
of  the  universe.  That,  then,  which  abides  and  deserves  the 
name  of  deity,  is  not  a  thing,  and  not  substance  or  matter, 
but  motion,  the  cosmic  process,  Becoming  itself."  1  Yet,  with 
Heraclitus,  this  ceaseless  self-transmutation  was  conceived 
of  as  though  taking  place  in  an  "  eternally  living  fire  :  "  "  All 
is  exchanged  for  fire,  and  fire  for  all,  as  wares  for  gold,  and 
gold  for  wares."  And  over  this  "  dim  idea  of  a  World-sub- 
stance "  was  placed  in  control  a  hidden  formative  harmony, 
a  divine  directing  law  (8/^77),  wisdom  considered  as  an 
efficient  force  (7^0^177),  an  imperial  and  universal  reason 


Thus  the  thinker  who  first  installed  the  category  of  change 
upon  the  throne  of  reality,  was  forced  to  acknowledge,  al- 
though in  vague  and  niggardly  fashion,  the  full  truth  to  be  : 
mere  change  cannot  constitute  any  single  actual  thing,  much 

1  Quoted  from  Windelband,  "  A  History  of  Philosophy,"  Part  I.,  chap.  i.,  §  4. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING  141 

less  an  orderly  world  of  interacting  actualities.  Change 
must  somehow  be  constituted  a  Principle  of  Becoming,  in 
order  to  be  recognized  as  a  conception  valid  for  reality.  And 
what  was  true  for  this  ancient  philosopher,  with  all  the  mis- 
taking of  figures  of  speech  for  substance  of  things  which 
characterized  his  age,  is  true  a  fortiori  for  us  now;  if  we  wish 
to  "  get  at "  Reality,  to  know  what  Being  is,  we  must  accept 
change  as  one,  but  only  one,  of  the  categories.  Becoming  is 
actualized  in  the  particular,  because  the  universal  Principle 
of  Becoming  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  Reality. 

That  change  is  actual,  both  in  minds  and  in  things,  cannot 
be  denied  in  consistency  with  the  undoubted  facts  of  all  hu- 
man experience.  But  this  is  quite  too  mild  a  way  of  calling 
attention  to  the  very  nature  of  this  experience  and  to  the 
nature  of  the  things  in  commerce  with  which  such  experience 
comes.  Indeed,  there  is  so  little  mystery  or  doubt  about 
this,  that  much  discussion  of  this  category  seems  superfluous. 
The  ontological  aspect  of  the  problem  may  be  expressed  in 
the  following  question :  How  can  change  in  reality  be  so 
conceived  of  as  that  it  will  serve  as  an  actual  all-inclusive 
principle  of  becoming  ? 

That  particular  changes  actually  occur  is  a  fact  of  knowl- 
edge so  primal  and  indubitable  that  the  attempt  to  deny  it 
involves  the  mind  in  the  most  fundamental  contradictions. 
We  cannot  even  imagine  or  think  of  changeless  existence, 
whether  mental  or  physical.  A  mind  that  experiences  no 
changes  is  not  conceivable  as  a  mind  at  all,  and  a  totally 
changeless  thing  is  no  actual  thing.  It  has  just  been  shown 
that  particular  beings  are  made  particular  by  the  possession 
of  certain  groups  of  qualities  peculiar  to  them.  But  qual- 
ities are  modes  of  the  doing  and  suffering  of  these  beings; 
and  to  do  or  to  suffer  in  different  ways  implies,  of  course,  the 
reality  of  change.  But  what  should  now  be  insisted  upon  as 
necessary  to  establish  a  point  of  view  from  which  to  criticize 
this  category  is,  that  the  full  meaning  of  change  can  be 


142  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

understood  only  by  recognizing  that  it  is  a  primary  and 
indubitable  fact  of  knowledge.  Any  grasp  of  consciousness 
which  is  a  full-orbed  act  of  cognition  —  content-full  and  self- 
active  and  involving  all  the  so-called  faculties  —  is  itself,  in 
its  full  significance,  an  actualization,  a  living  experience  of 
the  category  of  change. 

Psychology,  assuming  for  the  moment  the  biologist's  point 
of  view,  recognizes  the  immense  significance  of  sensations  of 
change  for  the  origins  and  growth  of  all  human  mental  life. 
In  the  form  of  sensations  of  motions,  the  human  animal,  like 
all  its  brothers  in  the  scale  below,  depends  largely  upon  its 
sensitiveness  to  change  for  its  survival  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  Psycho-physics  illustrates  abundantly  the  princi- 
ple that  "  sensations  of  becoming  "  form,  in  a  peculiar  way, 
the  stimuli  of  discriminating  consciousness,  and  the  indis- 
pensable basis  of  all  clear  perception  of  things.  But  such 
experience  as  this  does  not  afford  an  indubitable  knowledge 
of  change  in  reality,  whether  such  change  be  referred  to 
processes  in  some  thing  "  out  there  "  or  to  the  form  of  men- 
tal representation  "  in  the  mind."  Discrimination  as  a  truly 
intellectual  activity,  and  memory  in  the  form  of  clear  recog- 
nition of  likenesses  and  unlikenesses,  are  further  necessary  in 
order  to  establish,  within  our  more  primitive  and  indubitable 
experience,  the  category  of  change.  Yet  again,  the  mere 
occurrence  of  like  or  unlike  states  in  the  stream  of  conscious- 
ness, and  the  mental  discrimination  of  the  likeness  or 
unlikeness  of  these  states,  does  not  suffice  for  the  valid 
cognition  of  an  actual  change.  Development  of  time-con- 
sciousness, of  self-consciousness,  and  of  thing-conscious- 
ness, is  necessary  to  the  recognition  of  the  fleeting  succession 
of  different  conscious  states,  as  "  of"  the  world  of  selves  and 
of  things.  For  changes  are  no  more  capable  of  an  "  un- 
attached" existence,  of  being  known  mid-air  (auf  der  Luff), 
as  it  were,  than  are  qualities  or  states.  Minds  change  and 
things  change ;  and  we  know  the  actuality  of  their  change. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING  148 

But  knowledge  of  minds  and  of  things  is  never  mere  sensa- 
tion, or  mere  discriminating  consciousness.     Even  less  is  it 
a   mere  succession  of  totally  unrelated  conscious  states,— 
even  if  these  conscious  states  are  themselves  acts  or  pro- 
cesses of  relating  mentally. 

Now,  no  act  of  knowledge  that  has  for  its  object  particu- 
lar beings,  whether  things  or  minds,  in  a  process  of  "  under- 
going "  or  "  initiating "  changes,  can  be  less  rich  in  content 
than  is  knowledge  in  general.  In  other  words,  change  in 
reality  cannot  be,  originally,  merely  sensed  or  merely  inferred, 
but  it  must  be  known  ;  its  metaphysical  import,  or  ontologi- 
cal  character,  has  its  roots  in  cognition,  where  all  the  roots 
of  our  metaphysics  lie.  All  knowledge  has,  as  knowledge, 
this  metaphysical  import;  and  it  all  involves  the  develop- 
ment of  time-consciousness,  of  self-consciousness,  and  of 
"  thing  "-consciousness. 

If  now  the  data  of  cognitive  experience  be  analyzed,  there  is 
found  amongst  them  all  the  fact  of  a  knowledge  of  actual  changes , 
taking  place  both  in  ourselves  and  in  other  things.  This  known 
fact  of  change  in  particulars  is  much  more  primitive  than  is 
any  recognition  of  a  unity  of  nature,  a  principle  of  uniformity, 
or  any  conception  of  a  "  reign  of  law  "  over  any  particular  being 
or  over  that  system  of  beings  which  constitutes  the  world  as 
known  to  man.  The  diversity  of  one's  own  experiences,  the 
heterogeneity  of  other  things,  the  contrasts  and  oppositions  of 
objects,  are  the  primary  and  orginally  more  important  "  mo- 
ments "  of  all  man's  knowledge.  This  is  the  one  undeniable 
fact  in  actuality  which  lies  bedded  in  all  human  experience : 
In  the  form  of  time-consciousness  I  know  my  Self  and  Things 
as  differentiating  their  being  by  passing  from  one  condition  of 
doing  or  suffering  into  another  and,  in  some  respects,  unlike 
condition. 

That  we  have  correctly  stated  the  fact  of  knowledge  as  it 
appears  from  the  subjective  point  of  view,  no  one  can  doubt. 
Hence  it  is  customary  for  psychologists,  when  struggling 


144  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

to  free  their  expressions  from  all  metaphysical  implicates,  to 
point  out  that  the  very  nature  of  the  "  stream  of  conscious- 
ness "  is  that  it  shall  somehow  "flow"  This  stream  is —  say 
some  —  a  mere  succession  of  states  ;  although  even  then  it  is 
necessary  to  add,  that  each  "  phase,"  or  "  wave,"  or  "  pulse," 
of  consciousness  may  carry  with  it  something  that  gives  to  it, 
and  to  the  preceding  phases,  waves,  or  pulses,  a  sort  of  unity 
of  existence.  But,  however  one  tries  to  express  such  a  principle 
of  unity,  —  and  certainly,  something  of  the  kind  is  needed  to 
bind  together  the  successive  conscious  states  into  a  "  stream," 
—  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  there  is  no  dispute,  from  the 
subjective  or  psychological  point  of  vie  w,  that  without  changes 
of  conscious  states  there  can  come  to  be  no  "  stream  of  con- 
sciousness." "  Stream  "  means  a  flow,  a  series  of  changes. 
That  every  mind  appears  to  itself  as  changing,  and  that  indeed 
its  content  is  a  succession  of  different  "  appearances,"  no  ques- 
tion can  be  raised. 

But  the  truth  that,  from  the  psychological  or  subjective  point 
of  view,  all  facts  of  cognition  are  facts  of  changing  content,  has 
also  its  objective  or  ontological  side.  Considered  from  this  side, 
this  truth  becomes  an  unfailing  guaranty  of  the  reality  of 
change,  both  in  minds  and  in  things.  That  I  appear  to  myself 
to  change,  when  this  appearance  is  a  fact  of  knowledge,  is  not 
distinguishable  from  the  fact  that  I  know  myself  really  to 
change.  Or  —  to  state  the  case  more  precisely  —  the  distinc- 
tion between  appearing  to  one's  self  to  change  and  actually 
changing  one's  self  is  only  a  distinction  in  points  of  view  and 
in  form  of  abstract  mental  representation  ;  it  is  not  a  distinc- 
tion valid  in  reality.  When  I  pass  from  a  state  of  predomi- 
nating pain  to  one  of  predominating  pleasure,  or  from  the 
perception  of  a  running  horse  to  reflection  upon  the  psycho- 
physical  mechanism  which  is  necessary  to  its  running,  or 
from  the  memory  of  a  disagreeable  experience  in  the  past  to 
the  joyful  intuition  of  a  great  painting,  I  know  that  I  do 
actually  change.  Hence  cognitive  consciousness  of  change  is 


CHANGE   AND  BECOMING  145 

convertible  with  cognition  of  actual  change  when  the  Self  is 
regarded  as  the  object.  For  the  entire  complex  experience  is 
statable  only  in  this  way :  I  know  that  I  have  changed ;  I 
was  actually  in  one  condition  some  while  since,  and  I  am  now 
actually  in  a  different  condition.  The  distinctive  feature  of 
such  a  form  of  consciousness,  if  it  attains  the  dignity  and  the 
veraciousness  of  a  genuine  act  of  self-knowledge,  is  just  this : 
I  am  cognitively  conscious  of  changing,  and  this  "  changing  " 
is  known  to  be  mine. 

In  all  our  use  of  this  category,  too,  its  application  to  things 
is  somewhat  differently  made  from  its  application  to  ourselves. 
Hence  the  metaphysical  discussion  of  change  must  begin  by 
returning  to  the  more  modest  claim  :  external  things  do  cer- 
tainly appear  to  me,  and  to  all  men,  very  frequently  and  some- 
what indefinitely  to  change.  I  cannot,  however,  immediately 
convert  this  claim  into  an  indubitable  proposition  that  things 
do,  in  reality,  change  ;  —  at  least  not  if  by  "  Things  "  I  now 
refer  to  aught  conceived  of  as  trans-subjectively  existent. 
Such  a  conversion  of  claims  is  made  more  difficult  by  the  con- 
clusions of  modern  science  as  to  the  nature  of  physical  changes 
in  general.  For  example,  the  table  yonder,  with  the  books 
lying  upon  it,  has  certainly  the  appearance  of  a  tolerably  stable 
collection  of  separate  beings,  occupying  for  the  present  un- 
changing relations  in  space.  Nor  do  the  visual  qualities  of 
these  beings  change  in  so  obvious  a  way  that  from  the  prac- 
tical point  of  view  there  is  any  need  to  take  account  of  their 
changes.  To  be  sure,  as  clouds  pass  over  the  sun  the  colors 
of  the  objects  are  slightly  altered;  and  if  one  chooses  to 
notice  this  phenomenon,  one  discovers  that  the  relations,  ap- 
parent size,  etc.,  of  the  objects  alter,  as  one's  eyes  and  body 
are  moved  in  their  relation  to  them.  But  the  important  fact 
of  cognitive  perception  is  this,  —  books  are  lying  still  on  a 
stationary  table,  a  mental  picture  of  a  system  of  unchanging 
beings  in  statical  relations  of  space.  If  now  the  physico- 
chemical  sciences  are  consulted  as  to  what  actually  causes  in 

10 


146  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

consciousness  such  a  picture,  these  sciences  have  a  tale  to 
narrate  of  ceaseless,  incredibly  rapid,  and  most  mysterious 
changes.  The  table  and  the  books,  considered  as  trans-sub- 
jectively  real  and  regarded  from  the  scientific  points  of  view, 
are  molecules  that  actually  approach  and  retreat  from  each 
other ;  within  these  molecules  are  atoms  darting  back  and 
forth ;  perhaps  these  atoms  must  be  conceived  of  as  them- 
selves infinitely  varied  systems  of  change,  like  wreaths  of  smoke 
or  of  gas  ;  and  within  each  reality,  and  between  all  the 
elements  of  them  all,  and  between  them  all  and  me,  and  within 
my  eyes,  nerve-tracts,  and  brain,  vibrates  unceasingly  the 
awfully  mysterious  being  of  the  omnipresent  and  god-like 
ether. 

No  wonder  that  the  man  of  so-called  "  common-sense  "  re- 
coils with  some  incredulity  from  that  picture  of  the  changes 
in  things  which  the  modern  sciences  constantly  affirm  to  be  the 
actual  state  of  the  case,  as  well  as  to  afford  the  real  causes  of 
the  changing  appearances  of  things  to  him  and  to  other  men. 

In  order  to  understand  our  experience  we  must  return  to 
the  sure  ground  of  standing  in  the  facts  of  knowledge.  From 
them  our  path  for  the  exploration  of  the  category  of  change 
—  its  trans-subjective  applicability  and  validity  —  must  be 
traced  anew.  These  facts,  so  far  as  they  concern  the  true 
being  of  the  world,  are  primarily  perceptions  by  the  senses. 
And  if  for  the  moment  one  is  willing  to  set  aside  the  very 
doubtful  distinction  sometimes  made  between  things  as 
known  to  us  and  "  things-in-themselves,"  some  progress  may 
quickly  .be  made  toward  a  tenable  solution  of  the  problem 
before  us.  For  it  has  already  been  shown  (p.  46  f.)  that  to 
regard  the  former  as  mere  appearances  and  the  latter  as  the 
only  true  realities  is  to  deny  the  most  fundamental  implica- 
tions of  all  human  cognitive  experience. 

In  the  knowledge  of  things  by  human  perception  they  are 
all  known  to  be  subjects  of  certain  modifications  peculiar  to 
them,  each  one.  In  other  words,  the  mind  perceives  changes 


CHANGE   AND  BECOMING  147 

in  things  as  well  as  in  its  self ;  but  the  character  and  limita- 
tions of  the  application  of  the  conception  of  change  are  not 
precisely  identical  for  both  things  and  minds.  Some  of  the 
apparent  changes  in  things  are  necessarily  attributed  to 
changes  in  the  mental  points  of  view;  or  even  to  actual 
changes  going  on  in  the  mind.  Some  other  changes,  however, 
we  are  irresistibly  convinced,  —  so  long,  at  least,  as  the  point 
of  view  of  perceptive  cognition  is  steadfastly  maintained, — 
belong  to  the  things  themselves  and  occur  in  reality.  Such 
are  especially  all  alterations  of  the  appearances  of  things  in 
space.  There  are,  indeed,  illusions  of  motion  not  a  few ; 
and  a  man  does  not  need  to  be  a  modern  expert  in  psychol- 
ogy to  know  this.  Men  have  always  known  and  reckoned 
upon  such  experiences  successfully  in  a  practical  way.  But 
whatever  space  may  really  be,  and  whatever  motion  in  space 
may  actually  mean,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  knowledge 
of  actual  changes  of  place  by  the  things  constitutes  an  insep- 
arable part  of  men's  knowledge  of  what  things  really  are  and 
actually  do. 

To  naive  perception  things  actually  change  not  only  their 
size  and  shape,  by  accretion  or  growth  or  separation,  but  also 
their  color,  taste,  and  other  sensuous  properties.  All  the 
advances  of  the  physico-chemical  sciences,  however,  tend  in 
the  direction  of  reducing  all  changes  in  the  sensuous  prop- 
erties of  things  to  terms  similar  to  those  to  which  changes  in 
place,  size,  and  shape  may  obviously  be  reduced ;  all  perceived 
changes  of  the  qualities  of  things,  that  is  to  say,  are  really 
appearances  due  to  actual  motions  of  things.  These  motions 
may  be  either  in  the  gross  masses  of  things,  or  in  the  mole- 
cules and  atoms  composing  them ;  or  they  may  be  motions  in 
some  medium,  or  vehicle,  which  connects  human  organs  of 
sense  with  external  things,  such  as  olfactory  effluvia,  lumin- 
iferous  ether,  etc.  It  must  be  admitted  that  all  the  re- 
sources of  these  sciences,  aided  by  the  two  arms  of  mathe- 
matics and  improved  instrumentation,  have  not  yet  succeeded 


148  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

in  making  the  reduction  complete.  Certain  occult  or  manifest 
qualities  and  changes  in  things  have  to  be  recognized  in  fact, 
for  which  we  can  as  yet  devise  no  formulas  —  even  imaginary 
— in  terms  of  motion.  Nevertheless,  the  effort,  the  tendency, 
and  the  triumphs,  of  modern  physical  theory  are  unmistakable 
here.  Things  can  move  —  either  as  masses  in  space,  or  intra- 
molecularly,  or  perhaps  "  intra-atomically  ; "  but  these  are  all 
the  changes  of  which,  quoad  "things,"  they  are  capable.  This 
kind  of  change,  however,  they  actually  do  both  undergo  them- 
selves and  cause  in  one  another ;  and,  indeed,  they  are  always 
ceaselessly  changing  in  this  way,  whether  the  dull  and  slow 
senses  of  man  can  discern  the  truth  of  fact  or  not. 

What  is  necessary  to  acknowledge,  then,  as  known  to  science, 
may  be  stated  in  the  following  way :  The  doubt  or  denial  of 
all  actual  changes  in  external  things  cannot  be  held  in  con- 
sistency with  the  facts  and  legitimate  inferences  of  man's  ex- 
perience with  things.  Agnosticism,  whether  positive  or  negative, 
concerning  the  trans-subjective  validity  of  the  category  of  change 
undermines  the  entire  fabric  of  human  knowledge.  It  is  not 
simply  a  permissible  postulate  to  hold  that  change  in  my 
perceptive  consciousness  is  explicable  because  change  is  actual 
in  the  world  of  things.  It  is  rather  the  necessary  presupposi- 
tion, the  inescapable  metaphysical  import,  of  all  perceptive 
and  scientific  knowledge  of  things,  that  they  actually  do 
change.  To  state  the  fact  of  knowledge  in  an  abstract  but 
thoroughly  justifiable  way :  The  very  terms  of  the  knowable- 
ness  of  things  include  the  implicate  —  things  do  really  change. 
Process  and  Becoming  in  the  realities  of  human  experience 
cannot  be  reduced  to  merely  subjective  affairs,  or  to  charac- 
teristics of  the  existence  of  the  Ego  as  a  flowing  "  stream  of 
consciousness,"  without  undermining  the  entire  structure  of 
that  knowledge  of  the  external  world  which  the  race  has 
builded  through  many  thousands  of  years.  If  this  were  the 
place  for  such  an  excursus,  it  could  also  be  shown  that  all  the 
social,  and  even  the  ethical  and  religious,  postulates,  convic- 


CHANGE   AND   BECOMING  149 

tions,  and  most  firmly  established  cognitions  of  men,  are  alike 
pledged  to  guarantee  the  actuality  of  changes  going  on  in 
external  things. 

The  growth  of  human  knowledge  shows  that  both  selves 
and  things  are  somehow  and  to  some  extent  at  least,  con- 
nected together  in  a  unitary  system  of  interdependent  changes. 
That  the  changes  which  go  on  in  any  one  thing,  or  group  or 
system  of  things,  are  never  entirely  independent  of  changes 
going  on  elsewhere,  is  true  both  as  a  sort  of  necessary  presup- 
position and  as  an  indisputable  conclusion  of  scientific  inves- 
tigation. Only  in  case  something  like  this  be  conceived  of 
as  actual,  can  the  name  of  science  be  vindicated  for  any  body 
of  propositions.  Only  as  man's  growing  knowledge  confirms 
and  perpetually  illustrates  this  conception,  can  scientific 
development  take  place.  Here  the  omnipresent  category  of 
relation  thrusts  itself  forcibly  upon  our  attention.  Things 
and  minds  do  not  change  in  a  wholly  isolated  way.  And  even 
when  some  one  thing  or  mind  seems  to  take  upon  itself  the 
responsibility,  so  to  speak,  of  initiating  any  change  in  itself, 
such  change  eventuates  in  a  change  in  some  other  thing  or 
mind. 

Without  at  present  raising  again  the  issue  between  a 
monistic  or  a  dualistic,  theory  of  mind  and  body,  and  the 
theory  of  psycho-physical  parallelism,  we  need  only  call 
attention  to  the  universally  accepted  facts  involved  in  experi- 
ence: somehow  changes  in  us  and  changes  in  things  are 
actually  related.  In  certain  forms  of  experience  the  convic- 
tion is  universally  accepted,  and  must  therefore  be  critically 
accounted  for,  that  the  actual  changes  recognized  in  the  self 
and  those  changes  perceived  or  inferred  in  external  things 
run  through  such  an  order  as  that  the  one  is  in  a  fairly 
faithful  correlation  with  the  other.  For  example :  "  I  saw 
the  greyhound  run  from  the  hedge  beside  the  road  to  the  tree 
upon  the  hillside."  This  "I  saw,"  with  its  object,  was 
actually  a  series  of  conscious  states  of  perception  that  have 


150  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

somehow  come  to  have  the  unity  of  a  continuous  mental 
process.  But  the  "  running  greyhound "  is  a  real  thing 
changing  its  actual  position  in  space.  And  yet  the  very 
meaning  of  the  terms  in  which  the  complex  knowledge  is 
declared  implies,  as  beyond  doubt,  some  sort  of  dependence  of 
the  former  on  the  latter.  While  the  perceptions  changed,  P, 
P1?  P2,  P3,  P4,  etc.,  the  place  of  the  greyhound  changed,  as  6r, 
#!,  #2,  #3,  $4,  etc.  In  details  I  may  easily  be  mistaken ;  the 
apparent  position  indicated  by  PI  never  corresponds  with  the 
actual  position  of  6ri :  and  yet  the  entire  mental  series  of  P, 
P1?  etc.,  is  a  "  fairly  faithful "  representation  of  the  trans-sub- 
jective series,  G-,  6r1?  etc. 

Further  discussion  of  much  that  is  involved  in  what  has  just 
been  said  must  be  left  for  other  connections.  It  is  enough  now 
to  notice  that  in  knowing  the  actuality  of  changes  in  both 
things  and  minds,  both  kinds  of  change  are  known  as  somehow 
belonging  to  a  single  system  of  changes.  To  remove  things 
from  this  system  would  render  them  unknowable  and  even  in- 
conceivable as  things  ;  to  remove  our  self  from  this  system  would 
be  to  render  this  self  incapable  of  the  knowledge  of  things. 

When  such  a  word  as  "  system  "  is  introduced  into  a  meta- 
physical discussion,  the  thought  has  already  passed  beyond 
the  conception  of  mere  change,  or  change  considered  as  un- 
limited —  change  that  is  conceived  of  only  in  terms  of  change. 
And  the  truth  is  that  mere  change,  or  random  change,  in  our- 
selves or  in  things,  is  not  what  our  true  experience  reports 
to  us ;  such  change,  did  it  exist,  would  be  essentially  unknow- 
able. To  speak  of  a  "  Thing "  changing,  or  of  a  "  Self " 
changing,  is  already  to  limit  the  character  of  the  change.  For 
the  point  of  contemplation  to  which  the  mind  is  now  compelled 
to  advance  for  the  further  reflective  treatment  of  this  category 
discloses  the  following  truth :  nothing  real,  whether  minds  or 
things,  can  be,  unless  some  limitation  is  put  upon  the  changes 
which  it  undergoes.  Both  knower  and  object-thing  known 
at  once  lose  claim  to  be  the  same  realities  if  they  are  carried 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING  151 

by  the  "world-flow"  beyond  a  certain  limit  of  change.  Some 
principle  of  becoming  must,  then,  be  acknowledged  as  in  con- 
trol of  all  the  modifications  which  all  real  particular  beings 
actually  undergo.  In  other  words,  change  is  indeed  a  nec- 
essary qualification  of  reality,  and  an  indubitable  fact  bound 
up  in  the  process  of  knowledge  ;  but  mere  change  is  not  only 
logically  inconsistent  with  the  conception  of  a  thing  or  of  a 
mind  ;  it  is  also  inconsistent  with  the  reality  of  any  known  thing 
or  self-conscious  mind.  Here,  again,  then,  we  take  our  stand  on 
the  incontestable  facts  of  cognitive  experience  and,  in  defiance 
of  all  manner  of  sophistic  or  other  agnostic  abstractions,  affirm 
that  this  regulation,  or  control,  of  change  must  be  ontological. 
Metaphysics,  whether  naive  and  so  fitted  for  practical  life  and 
for  the  pursuit  of  the  physical  sciences,  or  critical  and  system- 
atic, is  compelled  to  recognize  principles  of  becoming  as 
applied  to  the  world  of  concrete  realities. 

In  the  conclusion  just  reached  we  have  spoken  of  "  prin- 
ciples" of  becoming  rather  than  of  any  one  Principle  of  Becom- 
ing. This  has  been  partly  due  to  the  wish  to  cling  as  closely 
as  possible  to  the  actual  facts  of  men's  common  life  of  knowl- 
edge ;  and  partly  to  the  belief  that  all  the  other  metaphysical 
problems  are  involved,  in  a  vital  way,  in  any  effort  to  unify 
the  different  actual  changes  of  things  and  minds.  It  must  be 
admitted  therefore,  for  the  present,  that  the  growth  of  knowl- 
edge allows  of,  and  seems  at  first-hand  analysis  to  require,  an 
almost  indefinite  variety  of  real  principles  of  becoming.  From 
the  practical  points  of  view,  and  for  man's  workaday  uses  the 
amount  of  changes  consistent  with  the  continued  reality  of  any 
single  thing  is  determined  in  a  vague  and  shifting  manner ; 
but  what  chiefly  determines  is  the  particular  point  of  view, 
with  its  practical  utility.  For  example,  water  frozen  is  no 
longer  water,  but  has  been  changed  into  ice  ;  and'  yet  it  is 
after  all  the  same  clear  water  which  makes  the  good  ice. 
Water  heated  changes  into  vapor :  and  heated  more,  it  is  no 
longer  water  but  has  become  steam.  This  same  water,  when 


152  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

subjected  to  certain  conditions  in  the  chemical  laboratory, 
changes  into  oxygen  and  hydrogen  gases  — things  so  unlike 
their  original  that  the  change  seems  incredible  to  naive  percep- 
tion. Oxygen  and  hydrogen  gases  are  not  the  same  things  as 
the  water  from  which  they  are  derived,  the  water  is  no  longer 
really  existent ;  but  these  particular  volumes  of  gas  have  just 
come  actually  to  be.  Liquefied  air  is  not  at  all  like  air ;  and 
yet  it  is  called  air  —  only  liquefied.  But  that  the  water  has 
changed  into  gases  seems  improperly  to  express  the  transac- 
tion in  reality.  The  air  has  changed  its  form  and  become  liquid. 
The  water  has  lost  its  reality  by  the  process  of  decomposition  ; 
but  two  other  things  have  been  brought  into  being  by  the  same 
process.  Even  the  man  of  science,  with  his  mind  so  firmly 
fortified  against  all  claims  for  an  existence  ab  initio,  can 
scarcely  avoid  talking  in  this  vague  and  uncertain  way. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  illustrate  the  truth  for  which  we  are 
contending  with  any  of  the  thousands  of  examples  which 
might  readily  be  found.  Consider  the  amazing  transformations 
through  which  some  animals  and  plants  go ;  so  that  recogni- 
tion of  them  as  in  any  sense  the  same  beings  in  the  different 
stages  of  their  transformations,  is  difficult  or  impossible  even 
for  the  most  trained  among  experts.  Consider  the  amazing 
transformations  through  which  every  plant  and  every  animal 
necessarily  goes  —  transformations  that  are  not  considered 
"amazing"  only  because  they  are  too  familiar  to  shock  the 
unreflecting  mind.  For  example,  we  are  now  being  told,  as 
an  interesting  new  discovery  in  botany,  that  "  the  cycle  of 
vegetation  of  the  truffle  is  completed  by  an  alteration  of  states, 
each  having  to  do  with  a  different  substratum  or  host.  This 
alteration  is  very  similar  to  that  which  takes  place  in  the  case 
of  Ascidiums  which,  as  it  is  known,  develop  on  a  different 
species  of  plant  from  that  which  bears  them  during  the  earliest 
period  of  their  existence."  And  what  shall  we  say  of  the 
changes  which  go  on  in  the  newly  impregnated  egg,  as 
modern  microscopy  and  physiological  chemistry  describe  these 


CHANGE   AND  BECOMING  153 

changes  ?  Here  is  a  Thing  that  is,  and  is  to  be,  in  some  sort 
the  same  throughout  ;•  but  what  it  will  be,  does  not  appear  as 
yet,  even  under  the  highest  powers  of  the  magnifying  glass  or 
the  most  delicate  of  chemical  tests.  But  as  we  look  on,  and 
under  our  eyes,  it  proceeds  to  define  itself  more  and  more  by 
going  through  most  astonishing  and  wholly  unpredictable 
changes.  Under  the  influence  of  interior  forces  it  proceeds  to 
maintain  its  claim  to  be  a  particular  real  being  by  placing  all 
its  changes  under  the  limitation  or  control  of  some  peculiar 
principles  of  becoming. 

If  now  our  science  tries  to  account  for  any  such  succession 
of  phenomena  by  ascribing  it  all  to  the  peculiar  attributes 
of  the  molecules  which  compose  for  example  the  substance 
of  the  living  cell,  it  only  pushes  the  problem  further  back. 
For,  in  the  first  place,  it  can  only  describe  the  molecules  and 
atoms  themselves  as  real  things,  whose  changes  are  some- 
how limited  and  controlled  by  principles  belonging  to  each,  — 
molecules  of  albuminoids,  carbohydrates,  etc.,  or  atoms  of 
carbon,  oxygen,  hydrogen  and  nitrogen.  And,  in  the  second 
place,  the  principles  of  becoming,  which  account  for  observed 
changes  in  the  relations  of  the  atoms,  or  in  the  constitution 
of  the  molecules,  do  not  in  themselves  suffice  to  serve  as  prin- 
ciples of  that  becoming  which  the  entire  history  of  the 
plant  or  animal  displays.  Every  atom  is  some  sort  of  a 
unity  equipped  by  chemical  theory  with  its  peculiar  list  of 
principles  that  regulate  what  it  can  really  do  and  be ;  and  so 
is  every  species  of  molecule  compounded  of  the  atoms ;  and 
so  is  every  individual  real  thing  composed  of  an  infinity  of 
molecules. 

It  is  undoubtedly  things  which  grow  that  furnish  most 
striking  illustrations  of  the  need  of  principles  of  becoming. 
But  the  same  need  exists  for  things  which  do  not  grow ;  for 
all  things,  indeed,  that  change  ;  and  so  for  all  things,  since 
all  things  change.  When  something  to  serve  as  a  nucleus  is 
cast  into  the  menstruum  where  certain  molecules  of  a. 


154  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

definite  chemical  construction  are  in  solution,  then  a  crystal 
whose  character  is  determined  by  the  construction  of  the 
molecules  begins  to  form  itself.  In  fact,  the  molecules  rally, 
run  together  and  range  themselves  in  appropriate  ideal  man- 
ner ;  and  a  wholly  new  being  is  formed.  This  striking  series 
of  changes  is  separated  from  those  that  characterize  the 
growth  of  a  living  cell  by  certain  sharp  lines  of  demarkation 
which  modern  science  only  emphasizes,  but  cannot  as  yet  see 
the  possibility  of  breaking  down.  Yet  the  crystal,  like  the 
full-grown  animal  or  plant,  is  far  from  being  the  resultant 
of  unlimited  or  uncontrolled  changes.  On  the  contrary,  it 
acquires  and  maintains  its  existence  as  a  "  crystal "  —  as  that 
particular  being  which  it  is  —  under  a  stricter  limitation  and 
control  than  that  which  presides  over  the  living  cell.  Its 
more  specific  characteristics,  as  a  crystal  of  a  particular  kind, 
require  it  constantly  to  subject  its  changes  to  the  appropriate 
principles  regulative  of  its  specific  form  of  being. 

In  a  word,  however  the  points  of  view  and  the  ends  desired 
may  change,  the  metaphysical  truth  enforced  by  the  facts 
remains  the  same.  Men  choose  the  points  of  view  from  which 
to  contemplate  the  alterations  and  the  identities  of  particular 
things,  with  various  theoretical  or  practical  ends  to  serve. 
But  changes  of  tilings  in  reality  cannot  be  known  or  conceived  of, 
as  mere  mechanism  of  change;  they  are  always  known  and 
conceived  of  as  falling  under  some  principle  that  shall  serve 
•as  a  living  and  associating  unity.  Principles  of  becoming 
must  limit  and  control  all  actual  becoming.  Only  thus 
can  things  have  their  different  states  and  conditions  unified 
enough  to  validate  their  claim  to  a  place  in  the  world  of 
reality. 

What  kind  of  principles  accordingly  will  serve  to  confine 
the  changes  of  things  within  the  limitations  necessary  to  their 
being  known  as  realities  ?  And,  since  every  such  principle 
must  be  ontological :  What  kind  of  a  "  living  and  associating 
unity "  must  particular  real  beings  possess  in  order  that, 


CHANGE   AND   BECOMING  155 

while  actually  changing,  they  may  somehow  continue  real  ? 
Now,  all  human  language  and  human  thinking  show  clearly 
enough  how  these  questions  must  be  answered,  if  answered 
at  all.  And  the  refusal  to  accept  this  answer  throws  the 
mind  back  into  that  agnostic  position  from  which  the  con- 
sistent application  of  any  of  the  categories  to  reality  becomes 
impossible.  "  The  real  identity  (0r  continued  being)  of  any 
particular  being  consists  in  this,  that  its  self-activity  manifests  it- 
self, in  all  its  different  relations  to  other  beings  as  conforming 
to  an  immanent  idea"  l  But  the  conception  of  "  conforming 
to  an  immanent  idea"  is  derived  from  our  familiar  experi- 
ence with  ourselves.  It  is  as  actually  thus  conforming  to 
immanent  ideas  that  we  know  ourselves  to  exist,  and  to 
remain  somehow  the  same,  in  spite  of  all  changes  of  states 
and  conditions  which  we  either  undertake  or  undergo.  And 
when  we  know,  or  conceive  of,  other  selves  as  actually  con- 
tinuing in  existence,  although  being  subject  to  change,  the 
same  principle  is  applied  to  them.  Finally,  all  men's  cogni- 
tions and  conceptions  of  external  things  illustrate  the  same 
truth.  Things  are  known  or  conceived  of  as  remaining  some- 
how seZf-identical,  while  being  subjects  of  more  or  less  im- 
portant changes,  after  the  analogy  of  this  identity  which  be- 
longs to  the  self.  We  project  into  things  "that  which"  secures 
their  existence  from  succumbing  to  the  constant  process  of 
change.  Like  the  self,  they  remain  constant,  in  their  doing 
and  suffering,  to  immanent  ideas.  As  having  self-activity  — 
the  mysterious  "  core "  of  the  being  of  things  —  and  as 
being  related  to  other  beings  in  a  system  of  things,  the 
various  forms  of  their  doing  and  suffering  come  under  the 
control  of  ideal  principles.  And  to  be  actually  "  under  the 
control  of  ideal  principles,"  as  distinguished  from  being  a 
mere,  unintelligible  and  unmeaning  mechanism  of  change, 
is  to  do  and  to  suffer,  in  this  respect  as  we  know  ourselves  to 

1  Compare  "Philosophy  of  Mind,"   chaps,  iv.  and  v. ;  and   "Philosophy    of 
Knowledge,"  chaps,  vii.  and  ix 


156 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 


do  and  to  suffer.  The  ontological  Principle  of  all  Becoming 
must  be  an  ideal  principle;  and  as  an  ideal  principle,  it 
requires  so  far  forth  that  things  should  be  known  as  bearing 
an  essential  likeness  to  the  Self. 

Now,  that  I  do  actually  conform  to  immanent  ideas  is  an 
indisputable  truth  of  immediate  experience.  This  is,  in  many 
instances,  the  central  truth  of  self-consciousness;  in  all 
instances  of  self-cognition  it  is  a  truth  implicate  in  the  very 
process  of  self-cognition.  Knowledge  of  one's  self,  as  actually 
changing  or  as  having  changed,  always  implies  the  recognition 
that  the  actual  changes  have  been  limited  and  controlled  by 
some  ideal  principle.  If  experience  be  analyzed,  it  is  found 
that,  although  self-knowledge  cannot  be  resolved  into  what 
Lotze  calls  "  self-feeling "  and  somewhat  injudiciously  over- 
estimates in  his  doctrine  of  being,  it  cannot  be  experienced 
without  such  self-feeling.  Neither  can  self-knowledge  exist 
without  that  self-felt  activity  which  has  been  found  to  be  im- 
portant as  a  sort  of  root  for  the  growth  of  the  metaphysical 
conception  of  substance,  or  pure  being.  But  neither  can  the 
act  of  self-knowledge  be  completed  without  recognitive 
memory  and  that  reflective  thinking  which  issues  in  the 
cognitive  judgment :  /,  that  was,  and  am,  and  have  been,  am 
the  subject  of  all  the  changes.  This  is  to  affirm  that  all  the 
changes  have  been  conformable  to  the  one  idea  of  my  "  Self ; " 
and  therefore  not  merely  felt,  and  willed,  but  also  known  as 
mine.  This  conformity  is  not  merely  conceptual,  a  bare 
agreement  with  an  abstract  idea ;  for  the  Self  which  realizes 
and  knows  it  is  not  a  mere  abstract  being,  a  bare  idea  of  a 
self. 

Suppose,  now,  that  any  particular  change  occurs  in  the 
"  stream  of  consciousness  "  which,  on  well-known  psychological 
principles,  must  be  attributed  to  the  Self  and  not  to  some 
Thing,  but  which  only  partially  or  with  difficulty  conforms  to 
the  ideal  principles  recognized  as  belonging  to  the  self.  Such 
a  change  is  recognized  as  more  or  less  "unlike"  me,  al- 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING  157 

though  it  is  "  in  "  me  ;  it  seems  "  queer  "  that  I  should  do  in 
this  way  or  should  suffer  such  feelings  as  this.  Still,  within 
certain  not  easily  assignable  limits,  one  may  swerve  in  one's 
conscious  changes  from  the  idea  which  defines  one's  own 
being  and  yet  remain  an  actually  existing  and  self-identical 
mind.  Even  the  unfortunate  victim  of  progressive  paralysis 
can  still  remember  some  things  belonging  to  his  past,  can 
still  recognize  some  of  the  present  objects  of  his  mental  re- 
presentation as  belonging  to  his  peculiar  "  personal  "  experi- 
ence, can  still  exhibit  to  himself  and  to  others  certain  well- 
known  traits.  He  is  still  in  a  measure  the  same  real  mind 
that  he  once  was  ;  and  yet,  how  changed  !  But  suppose  that 
absolutely  all  conformity  recognizable  by  himself  or  by  other 
minds  to  the  idea  of  the  former  self  has  ceased;  then  this 
particular  mind  has  so  changed  as,  for  the  time  at  least,  to 
have  vanished  from  reality ;  it  is  no  longer  the  subject  of 
changes,  for  it  has  ceased  to  be  as  becomes  the  actuality 
of  a  mind.1 

Doubtless,  we  seem  to  be  talking  in  figures  of  speech  when 
we  apply  similar  terms  to  physical  things.  Granted,  too,  that 
we  are  really  talking  in  figures  of  speech.  The  fact  remains, 
nevertheless,  that  all  which  we  know,  or  can  mean,  about  the 
identity  of  things  amidst  their  changes  must  be  constructed 
after  the  analogy  of  our  experience  with  our  own  changing  and 
yet  self-identical  selves.  How  physics  and  chemistry  work 
out  the  details  of  the  general  principle,  and  how  they  sum- 
mon to  their  efficient  help  the  categories  of  Force,  Quantity, 
Number,  etc.,  will  be  briefly  considered  elsewhere.  Confining 
ourselves  at  present  to  the  discussion  in  hand,  we  can  only 
repeat  what  was  formerly  said  from  another  point  of  view : 
"  Things  have  in  reality  no  sameness,  no  identical  and  per- 
manent being,  except  as  they  conform  to  the  terms  of  mental 
existence,  and  manifest  the  immanency  and  control  of  that 

1  For  further  discussion  of  this  problem,  see  the  author's  "  Philosophy  of  Mind," 
chap.  v. :  "  The  Consciousness  of  Identity  and  so-called  Double  Consciousness." 


158  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

which  is  inconceivable  unless  it  be  stated  in  terms  of  mincL 
In  vain  do  physics,  chemistry,  and  biology  strive  to  escape 
some  such  conclusion  as  this.  The  terms  they  employ  to 
set  forth  what  in  the  physical  world,  amid  all  changes, 
remains  really  the  same,  are  absolutely  meaningless  unless 
all  material  reality  is  admitted  to  be  the  expression  and  the 
subject  of  what  is  ideal." 

Mr.  Bradley  is  not  without  good  grounds  in  affirming  that 
a  certain  "  self-consistency "  is  the  primal  principle  of  all 
the  real.  For  if  now  we  attempt  to  apply  the  conception  of 
change  or  becoming  to  the  entire  world  of  being,  the  same 
line  of  reflective  thinking  must  be  followed  to  its  legitimate 
end.  A  World,  a  Cosmos,  no  matter  how  incomplete  or  even 
inchoate,  and  no  matter  how  little  rational  from  the  higher 
ethical  and  aesthetical  points  of  view,  cannot  be  an  unrelated 
and  unsystematized  series,  or  network,  of  changes.  Some  prin- 
ciple of  becoming  must  be  recognized,  just  so  far  in  space 
and  in  time  as  such  changes  are  known  or  even  conceived  of, 
as  belonging  to  one  world.  And  wherever  known  or  con- 
ceived of,  this  principle  bears  the  stamp  of  its  origin  and  of 
its  original  application.  Its  extension  to  the  system  of  physi- 
cal change  in  the  world  of  things  is  valid  only  if  the  anal- 
ogy between  this  world  as  a  totality  and  the  totality  of  changes 
we  know  as  belonging  to  the  Self  is  valid.  For  the  appli- 
cation is  itself  the  projection  of  the  immanent  presence  of  an 
Ideal  Principle  into  the  heterogeneity  of  physical  changes^  as  a 
living  and  associating  force. 

It  was  the  poetical  recognition  of  this  truth  which  led 
Shelley  to  write  :  — 

"  The  One  remains,  the  many  change  and  pass ; 
Heaven's  light  forever  shines ;  earth's  shadows  fly ; 
Life,  like  a  dome  of  many-colored  glass, 
Stains  the  white  radiance  of  Eternity." 

But  Browning's  expression  of  the  thought  is  more  profound,, 
although  at  the  same  time  his  figure  of  speech  is  more  confused. 


CHANGE  AND  BECOMING 

"  For  as  some  imperial  chord  subsists, 
Steadily  underlies  the  accidental  mists 
Of  music  springing  thence,  that  run  their  mazy  race 
Around,  and  sink,  absorbed,  back  to  the  triad  base ; 
So,  out  of  that  one  word,  each  variant  rose  and  fell, 
And  left  the  same  'All 's  change,  but  permanence  as  well.' " 

But  in  order  to  discuss  the  possibility  of  applying  the  cate- 
gory of  Change  to  the  World-Ground,  or  to  the  entire  system 
of  things  and  to  its  career  of  changes  considered  as  falling 
under  some  conception  of  development,  there  is  much  work 
of  a  more  fundamental  and  humble  character  yet  to  do. 
Should  we  finally  attempt  such  high  themes,  however,  it  will 
be  well  to  remember  the  very  limited  set  of  conclusions  which 
this  chapter  has  enabled  us  to  reach. 


CHAPTER  VII 

KELATION 

IT  is  a  significant  saying  whose  origin  has  been  attributed 
to  different  authors,  and  which  expresses  a  truth  that  may 
well  enough  have  occurred  in  an  original  way  to  different 
minds :  "  Relation  is  the  mother  of  all  the  categories."  From 
the  subjective  point  of  view  relations  are  what  we  find  as 
ultimate  residua,  so  to  speak,  of  all  our  thinking ;  and  from 
the  objective  point  of  view,  they  are  the  manifold  expressions 
which  cognitive  experience  gives  to  the  fundamental  and  ulti- 
mate fact,  that  all  concrete  realities  —  so  far  as  known  or  know- 
able  to  man  —  are  united  into  some  kind  of  a  system.  If  that 
which  unites  things  is  solely  the  thinking  faculty  of  man, 
then  all  relations  whatever  are  subjective.  But  if  the  bond 
actually  exist,  in  various  ways,  between  concrete  real  beings, 
such  relations  cannot  be  the  result  solely  of  the  synthetic 
activity  of  the  human  thinking  faculty. 

It  is  the  temptation  of  all  metaphysical  discussion  of  this 
category  to  settle  its  problem  quickly,  and  to  attain  a  com- 
fortable position  of  logical  consistency,  by  leaping  to  either 
one  of  two  extreme  points  of  view.  Suppose  it  to  be  concluded 
that  all  relations  are  merely  subjective;  then  it  is  possible 
to  see  how  an  independent  active  and  synthetic  force  like 
the  human  mind  should  create  a  sort  of  unity  out  of  various 
appearances  to  itself,  in  accordance  with  the  terms  set  into 
its  own  constitution.  Trans-subjective  or  actual  relations 
between  real  things  are  thus  abolished ;  and  the  only  reality 
that  remains  as  the  "  correlate "  of  this  psychic  conscious 


RELATION  161 

force  is  the  One  unrelated  mystical  Absolute.  But  such 
"  correlation "  is  itself  surely  a  relation  that  must  be  main- 
tained as  existing  in  reality.  It  is  in  fact  an  entire  system  of 
concrete  and  definite  relations.  And  thus  the  category  of 
relation  produces  destructive  contradictions  within  the  very 
Being  of  the  Absolute.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  deny  that 
any  of  our  subjective  relations  belong  to  the  world  of  true 
reality,  the  successive  cognitions  of  man  remain  mere  "  ap- 
pearances," or  mists,  hung  mid-air  over  a  machine-like  system 
of  physical  interactions  ;  and  no  possible  way  can  be  devised 
of  verifying  any  truth  as  arising  between  the  subject  and  real 
things.  For  "  truth  "as  obtainable  by  the  mind  of  man  requires 
a  complicated  system  of  actual  relations  between  a  thinking  sub- 
ject and  the  transactions  going  on  amongst  beings  other  than  this 
subject.  The  reality  of  relations  is,  therefore,  a  metaphysical 
problem  whose  solution  determines  one's  entire  attitude 
toward  the  nature  of  reality.  And  this  solution  cannot  be 
safely  reached  by  a  leap  to  either  extreme  position. 

We  follow  a  suggestive  method  of  approaching  the  problem 
offered  by  the  category  of  relation,  if  we  consider  how  great 
is  the  variety  of  forms  which  this  category  may  assume.  In 
the  popular  way  of  regarding  the  truth,  there  is  only  one 
Space,  one  Time,  and  one  essentially  identical  conception  of 
Force,  —  however  manifold  the  "manifestations"  of  this 
force  may  be.  Of  Qualities,  Changes  and  Numbers,  of  Forms 
and  Laws,  a  quite  indefinite  variety  appears  necessary  in 
order  to  account  for  the  facts  of  our  more  primary  experiences 
with  things.  Of  Relations,  however,  there  certainly  seem  to 
be  a  considerable  number  of  species  which  do  not  admit  of 
easy  reduction  under  a  single  all-inclusive  genus.  And  yet 
the  number  of  possible  relations  is  by  no  means  so  essentially 
unlimited  as  is  the  number  of  qualities  or  changes  which 
things  are  capable  of  developing.  Considered  as  a  principle 
of  unifying,  therefore,  this  category  must  be  given  a  place 
somewhere  midway  between  the  two  classes  of  categories  with 

11 


162  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

which  it  has  just  been  compared.  Or,  to  put  the  case  in 
another  way:  The  correspondence  of  all  spaces,  times,  and 
forces,  to  the  conceptions  of  one  space,  one  time,  and  one 
force,  unifies  the  different  concrete  experiences  which  men 
have  with  an  indefinite  variety  of  things  and  of  minds ;  and 
thus  they  all  become  known  as  belonging  to  the  one  World 
which  includes  them  all  as  particular  beings  in  It.  But  the 
indefinitely  varied  qualities,  changes,  and  numbers,  of  things 
serve  to  break  this  unity  up  again  into  an  indefinite  variety 
of  particulars  ;  although  quality,  change,  and  number,  are  also 
unifying  principles.  Here,  however,  the  mediating  influence 
of  relations  becomes  manifest.  Space,  time,  and  force  actually 
unify,  because  particular  beings  are  known  as  related  in 
space,  in  time,  and  under  the  various  forms  or  manifestations 
of  force.  On  the  other  hand,  the  particular  beings  of  the 
world  are  bound  together  under  higher  and  yet  higher  forms 
of  unity  as  they  are  shown  to  be  related,  in  respect  of  their 
qualities,  changes,  and  forms,  and  their  subjection  to  general 
formulas  called  "  laws." 

That  some  such  view  of  the  mediating  and  unifying  office  of 
the  thought  of  relation  is  not  fanciful,  will  appear  more  clearly 
when  it  is  considered  how  actual  relations  are  established  by 
the  growth  of  human  knowledge ;  and  also  what  it  is  to  be 
related  in  reality.  But  the  nature  of  this  category  may  per- 
haps be  shown  in  yet  more  impressive  way  by  calling  atten- 
tion to  the  part  it  plays  in  those  dramatic  schemes  for  a  rigid 
classification  which  result  from  the  vain  attempt  to  treat 
metaphysics  as  a  matter  of  formal  logic.  For  example,  the 
author  of  one  such  attempt1  having  got  himself  ready  "to 
complete  the  Formal  edifice  which  we  have  been  slowly  build- 
ing up,"  divides  all  the  categories  into  "  a  posteriori  elements 
of  Receptivity  "  and  "  a  priori  Dialectic  moments  of  Percip- 
ience."  The  former  are  then  subdivided  into  "  Attuits  "  and 

1  See  a  book  called  "  Metaphysica  Nova  et  Vetusta,  A  Return  to  Dualism,  by 
Scotus  Novanticus,"  Sixth  Part,  The  Categories. 


RELATION  163 

u  Predicaments  "  ;  and  the  latter  into  "  Pure  "  and  "  Deriva- 
tive." But  the  interesting  thing  for  our  present  purpose  to 
notice  is,  that  four  of  the  eleven  "  attuits "  are  different 
kinds  of  relation  (i.e.,  of  space,  time,  quantity,  quality)  ;  and 
all  the  other  seven  are  inexpressible  without  introducing  the 
conception  of  relation.  Again,  all  the  so-called  "  predica- 
ments "  repeat  the  same  classification  from  an  altered  point 
of  view;  while  each  of  the  "&  priori  Dialectic  moments  of 
Percipience  "  —  except  the  "  Absolute-Infinite  "  and  "  Being  " 
as  Identity  —  is  most  obviously  neither  conceivable  nor  work- 
able without  aid  from  the  conception  of  relation.  And  as  to 
the  two  exceptions,  we  might  easily  undertake  to  show  that 
they,  too,  need  the  same  aid  if  they  are  not  to  remain  barren, 
useless,  and  merely  formal  abstractions. 

But  a  greater  master  than  the  author  of  the  "  Metaphysica 
Nova  et  Yetusta  "  has  failed  to  appreciate  the  full  significance 
of  the  ontological  truth  which  is  admitted  when  Relation  is 
declared  to  be  "  the  mother  of  all  the  categories."  We  refer,, 
of  course,  to  Kant,  the  founder  of  modern  metaphysical  dialec- 
tic and  criticism.  Who  has  emphasized  more  than  did  he^ 
the  truth  that  all  scientific  cognition  depends  upon  the  forms 
of  the  functioning  of  the  intellect,  or  relating  faculty ,  in  its. 
different  kinds  of  judgments  ?  In  fact,  the  conclusions  of  the 
Transcendental  ^Esthetic  as  to  Space  and  Time,  as  well  as  the 
theory  of  the  Transcendental  Dialectic  or  "  logic  of  illusion  " 
(eine  Logik  des  Scheins),  depend  upon  the  trustworthiness  of 
man's  relating  faculty  in  its  dealing  with  the  data  of  objective 
cognition,  or  "  phenomenal  reality."  Yet  Kant's  definite 
recognition  of  the  part  which  the  category  of  relation  takes  in 
the  unifying  of  human  knowledge  is  wholly  confined  to  the 
discussion  of  the  third  of  the  four  classes  of  categories.  And 
here  his  scheme  leads  him  to  recognize  only  three  kinds  of 
relation,  — namely,  Inherence  and  Subsistence,  Causality  and 
Dependence,  and  Community  or  reciprocity  between  the  active 
and  the  passive. 


164  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

It  is  undoubtedly  impossible  to  give  any  definition  of  the 
category  of  relation  in  general.  It  might  be  said  a  fortiori, 
we  cannot  tell  what  it  is  to  be  related,  or  even  what  we  mean 
when  we  affirm  relation  of  things  in  general,  without  assum- 
ing the  very  conception  it  is  proposed  to  define.  Definition 
itself  is  a  relating ;  — either  by  bringing  the  particular  into  a 
partial  unity  with  the  universal,  or  by  bringing  one  event  into 
a  partial  unity  with  another  event  as  its  cause,  or  by  bringing 
one  part  of  a  thing  into  a  partial  unity  with  other  parts,  as 
forming  a  totality,  etc.  This  very  attempt  to  define,  however, 
since  it  results  in  presenting  a  more  vivid  picture  of  the  way 
in  which  different  kinds  of  relation  are  concretely  realized 
furnishes  no  unimportant  clue  to  a  fuller  appreciation  of  the 
significance  of  this  category.  For  every  relation  appears  to  us, 
and  must  be  described,  as  a  partial  unification  of  two  beings 
which,  when  considered  irrespective  of  this  particular  relation, 
would  be  incapable  of  being  known  together  —  the  same  stand- 
point being  maintained. 

The  metaphysical  meaning  and  ontological  value  of  what 
has  just  been  somewhat  obscurely  indicated  will  appear  clear 
when  we  have  considered  briefly  the  psychological  genesis  of 
the  conception  of  relation.  What  is  it "  to  relate,11  —  or  for  the 
knowing  mind  so  to  function  as  to  present  itself  with  a  picture 
of  things,  or  events,  under  the  general  conception  of  relation  ? 
Now,  however  difficult  it  may  prove  for  different  thinkers  to 
agree  as  to  the  answer  to  the  ontological  problem,  or  even  as 
to  whether  any  answer  to  such  a  problem  can  be  given,  there 
is  no  doubt  about  the  correct  answer  to  the  psychological 
question.  To  relate,  from  the  subjective  point  of  view,  is  to 
think ;  it  is  to  function  as  our  intellect  always  does  whenever 
we  observe  the  simplest  and  most  obvious  relations ;  or  when- 
ever by  elaborate  processes  of  inference  we  reach  those  rela- 
tions that  are  most  complex  and  hidden.  Such  intellection 
is  necessary  for  the  knowledge  of  relations. 

Whenever  the  attempt  is  made  to  regard  experience  wholly 


RELATION  165 

from  the  psychologist's  point  of  view,  it  is  seen  that  there  can 
be  no  knowledge  without  that  functioning  of  intellect  which 
is,  pre-eminently  and  essentially  the  faculty  of  relating. 
"Relation-feelings"  —  more  properly  called  "feelings  of 
change  "  —  must  indeed  be  admitted,  if  one  is  intent  upon  a 
complete  analysis  of  the  content  of  consciousness  implied  in 
the  knowledge  that  A  is  related  to  B,  whether  as  part  to 
whole,  cause  to  effect,  means  to  end,  in  space,  in  time,  or 
however  related.  The  ideas,  whether  memory-images  or 
images  of  more  purely  imaginative  origin,  which  arise  in 
connection  with  this  "  feeling "  experience,  are  undoubtedly 
important  factors  in  determining  the  way  in  which  the  relat- 
ing function  shall  be  accomplished  within  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness. Neither  can  we  fail  also  to  observe  that  relating 
is  an  active  process ;  that  judgments  of  relation  are  true  deeds 
of  will.  But  the  distinctive  thing  about  all  "  relating  "  is  the 
manifestation  of  mind  as  intellect.  It  is  intellect  as  a  relating 
faculty  which  makes  possible  the  knowledge  of  relations,  of 
whatever  kind.  Only  when  discriminating  consciousness  has 
developed  the  power  of  framing  cognitive  judgments  can  rela- 
tions be  said,  not  merely  to  be  implicit  in  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, in  the  form  of  "  relation-feelings,"  but  to  be  known 
as  actually  existing  between  the  objects  of  cognitive  experience. 
It  is,  then,  the  nature  of  the  cognitive  judgment,  regarded 
as  the  summing  up  of  a  process  of  relating,  in  which  must  be 
found  the  explanation  of  the  genesis  of  the  category  of  rela- 
tion. Its  universality  as  a  form  of  knowledge,  when  regarded 
from  the  subjective  point  of  view,  is  necessary  and  complete. 
For  all  knowledge  necessarily  takes,  as  knowledge,  the  form 
of  this  judgment.  It  is  the  nature  of  this  judgment,  too, 
which  explains  what  was  formerly  said  in  describing  the 
work  performed  by  the  category  of  relation  in  the  progres- 
sive organization  of  experience.  The  work  is  itself  a  partial 
unification  of  two  otherwise  wholly  disparate  and  unknowable 
objects.  We  say  "  otherwise  unknowable,"  —  the  same  stand- 


166  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

point  being  maintained.  For  two  objects  which  refuse  to  be 
even  partially  unified,  or  judged  as  belonging  together,  under 
terms  of  any  one  particular  kind  of  relation,  may  always  be 
unified  under  some  other  relation  by  changing  the  point  of 
view  from  which  judgment  is  pronounced.  No  object,  how- 
ever, can  be  known,  can  become  an  object  of  perception  or 
of  inference,  that  cannot  be  partially  unified  with  other  ob- 
jects by  some  kind  of  judgment  of  relation.  The  thing  A 
must  be  classed  with  the  thing  B,  however  different  in  qual- 
ities, size,  shape,  etc.,  as  co-existent  in  the  one  space  in 
which  all  things  exist.  If  A  is  known  as  co-temporaneous 
with,  or  antecedent,  or  sequent  to  B,  then  the  one  time  in 
which  all  things  come  into  being,  persist,  and  pass  away, 
serves  as  a  further  principle  of  unification.  "  Time-wise," 
A  is  at  one  with  B ;  —  although  A  may  occupy  more  or  less, 
in  quantity,  than  B,  of  this  one  time.  A  may,  or  may  not, 
be  classed  with  B  under  any  one  of  those  particular  forms  of 
relation  which  serve  for  the  partial  unification  of  the  parti- 
cular beings  of  the  world.  But  in  order  to  be  known  at  all 
both  must  be  judged  as  falling,  together  with  other  beings, 
under  a  unity  brought  about  by  certain  forms  of  relation. 

It  is,  then,  by  being  related  that  the  different  objects  and 
"  momenta  "  of  man's  experience  as  a  "  knower  "  are  tempo- 
rarily and  partially  unified ;  and  are  afterward,  so  to  speak, 
released  from  these  particular  uniting  bonds,  only  to  enter 
into  others  of  similar  character.  The  only  complete  and  final 
release,  from  all  relations,  for  any  object  comes  when  it  dis- 
appears entirely  from  the  sphere  of  knowable  reality. 

The  same  psychological  view  of  the  origin  of  the  category 
of  relation  explains  how  the  knowledge  of  any  particular 
thing,  or  class  of  things,  accumulates  and  develops  in  the 
history  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race.  From  selected  but 
changing  points  of  view  the  different  "  momenta"  or  aspects 
of  the  thing,  or  the  different  members  of  the  class,  are 
thought  together  under  the  varying  kinds  of  relation.  In  the 


RELATION  167 

development  of  the  individual's  perception,  as  dependent  on 
time,  on  the  distribution  of  attention,  and  on  the  external 
conditions  limiting  the  quality,  intensity,  and  "  life-likeness  " 
of  the  sense-elements,  one  may  pass  from  a  vague  knowledge 
of  "somewhat"  over  there  (though  one  has  no  idea  "what") 
to  a  knowledge  involving  more  and  more  of  apperception  and 
of  judgment  as  to  the  particular  "  what."  This  is  the  mental 
construction  of  the  Thing  as  a  concrete  unity  exemplifying 
various  forms  of  relation,  —  both  internal  and  toward  other 
things. 

The  same  view  shows  us  why  things  are  known  as  having 
so  many,  and  no  more,  principal  kinds  of  relations.  There 
are  as  many  principal  kinds  of  relations  as  there  are  points 
of  view  from  which  the  mind  may  regard  things  as  objects  of 
relating  activity ;  and  there  are  only  so  many.  Thus  the  other 
categories  in  some  sort  set  the  limits  within  which  the  opera- 
tions of  the  relating  intellect  are  conducted.  Things  may  be 
related  in  space,  or  in  time,  or  as  respects  the  kind  and 
amount  of  force  belonging  to,  or  operating  upon  them ;  they 
may  be  related  as  respects  quantity,  and  number,  and  forms, 
and  laws ;  they  may  sustain  various  forms  of  the  causal  rela- 
tion, such  as  we  express  by  "  production,"  "  making,"  "  effect- 
ing," "  influencing,"  "  stimulating,"  etc. ;  they  may  be  related, 
by  virtue  of  likenesses  and  unlikenesses,  in  species,  genera, 
families,  and  so  on.  Sensations,  ideas,  thoughts,  and  trains 
of  reasoning,  as  such,  may  be  related.  The  categories  may 
themselves  be  considered  as  related ;  some  of  them  —  as,  for 
example,  substance  and  attribute — in  ways  peculiar  to  them- 
selves. Thus,  in  his  System  der  Philosophic  Wundt  has  a 
chapter  on  the  "Relation  of  Transcendent  Ideas  to  Meta- 
physical Views  of  the  World : "  and  in  this  chapter  he  con- 
siders the  two  ideas  of  an  "  infinite  totality "  and  a  "  finite 
absolute  unity "  as  related  so  that  they  "  completely  corre- 
spond "  to  the  relation  between  the  mathematical  conceptions 
of  the  infinitely  great  and  the  infinitely  small. 


168  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

All  that  has  been  said  thus  far  only  means  that  whatever 
men  think,  or  think  about,  must  bear  the  form  of  thought. 
And  since  all  knowledge  is  dependent  upon  thought,  all  that 
is  known  is  known  as  related.  So  that,  if  on  the  one  hand 
we  maintain  that  relations  exist  for  our  thought,  only  as  our 
relating  activity  constitutes  the  relations,  on  the  other  hand 
we  must  also  maintain  that  relations  are  the  forms  which  our 
thinking  impresses  upon  all  that  has  existence  for  thought. 

But  now  the  important  distinction  emerges  between  subjec- 
tive relations  and  relations  that  are  trans-subjective ;  or  —  as 
one  seems  compelled  to  express  the  distinction  in  popular  lan- 
guage—  relations  that  are  merely  thought  and  relations  that 
exist  in  reality.  The  student  of  systematic  metaphysics  can- 
not deny  or  abrogate  the  validity  of  some  such  distinction. 
It  has  already  been  seen  that  a  system  of  subjective  relations 
as  compact  as  is  the  nature  of  man's  functions  of  knowing  and 
yet  as  all-inclusive  as  is  the  sphere  of  those  functions,  must 
be  admitted.  Suppose  now  it  be  denied  that  relations,  in  any 
way  correlated  to  these,  exist  trans-subjectively.  Suppose  it 
to  be  affirmed  that  the  only  knowable  relations  which  can  be 
called  actual  are  those  consummated  in  the  stream  of  con- 
sciousness between  the  different  "  momenta  "  of  that  stream. 
Relations,  in  reality,  are  thus  limited  to  our  own  sensations, 
feelings,  ideas,  thoughts,  etc.  Strictly  carried  out,  such  a 
view  results  in  compelling  every  thinker  to  regard  himself 
as  the  only  real  being,  —  real,  because  unrelated  to  any  other 
real  being.  The  conception  of  reality  is  thus  made  identical 
with  the  idea  of  the  Self  regarded  as  absolutely  independent 
and  separated  from  all  other  actual  minds  and  things.  But 
such  a  conception  makes  void  the  psychology  of  knowledge, 
vitiates  objective  science,  and  destroys  the  foundations  of 
the  ethical  and  social  order  in  man's  consciousness  as  a 
knower;  it,  indeed,  ends  in  just  that  suicidal  hypothesis  of 
solipsism  which  has  already  been  rejected. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  the  actual  existence   of  other   selves, 


RELATION  169 

with  whom  I  may  come  into  intellectual,  ethical,  and  social 
relations,  is  once  admitted,  —  on  whatever  basis  the  admis- 
sion is  placed ;  then  actually  existent  relations  between  real 
beings  are  also  admitted.  And  if  the  distinction  between 
truth  and  error  be  held  valid  in  the  commerce  between  these 
intellects,  then  the  distinction  between  subjective  relations 
and  actual  relations  becomes  a  matter  of  fact.  That  is  to  say, 
it  has  become  matter  of  fact  that  the  intellect  of  A  either 
does,  or  does  not,  relate  B  and  C  to  itself,  or  to  each  other,  a& 
A,  B,  and  C,  are  actually  related.  And  if  the  number  of  selves 
constituting  this  community  of  real  beings,  and  the  complex- 
ity of  the  actual  relations  existing  amongst  them,  exceeds 
the  powers  of  the  intellect  of  either  A,  B  or  C ;  then  also 
the  subjective  and  the  actual  relations  appertaining  to  this' 
community  do  not  correspond  throughout. 

Nor  can  the  claims  of  this  distinction  be  arrested  at  the 
present  point.  For  if  knowers  were,  by  their  relating  activ- 
ities to  create  all  actual  relations,  and  things  were  not  them- 
selves actually  related;  then  these  knowers  would  belong 
entirely  to  a  world  apart  from  the  world  of  things.  Of  course, 
one  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  answer  which  the  Kantian  sub- 
jective view  of  the  nature  of  knowledge  proposes  to  our  problem. 
According  to  this  view  relations  between  things  and  minds, 
and  relations  amongst  things,  are  all  alike  the  work  of  the 
intellect's  relating  activity,  which  functions  in  a  totally  miracu- 
lous way  after  the  fashion  of  the  twelve  categories.  "  Nature," 
and  the  laws  of  nature,  are  to  be  regarded  as  purely  the  con- 
struct of  the  mind  of  man.  But,  as  has  often  been  pointed 
out,  Kant  himself  was  obliged  to  assume,  in  an  uncritical  way, 
the  positive  conception  of  a  trans-subjective  reality  for  things 
which  should  serve  the  threefold  purpose  of  being  the  un- 
known cause  of  our  sense-experience,  the  ground  of  the  limi- 
tations that  control  our  scientific  cognitions,  and  the  goal  of 
the  higher  activities  of  reason  in  its  effort  to  reach  its  supreme 
unities.  But  all  this  is  inexpressible  and  inconceivable  with- 


1TO  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

out  implying  terms  of  relation.  Thus  again  the  whole  system 
of  accounting  for  man's  experience  as  a  knower  breaks  utterly 
down  in  its  effort  to  lift  off  from  reality  the  load  of  the 
category  of  relation. 

Internal  and  destructive  contradictions  will  be  found  in 
every  attempt  that  ever  has  been  made  or  can  be  made,  to 
ground  the  cognitive  experience  of  man  in  a  real  being  which 
has  neither  internal  relations,  nor  relations  to  his  own  mind. 
Words  cannot  be  invented  which  are  sufficiently  charming  or 
convincing  to  banish  these  contradictions  from  the  conclu- 
sions of  such  an  attempt.  This  is  invariably  true  of  the 
Reality  envisaged,  believed  in,  or  excogitated,  by  every  form 
of  mysticism.  Such  mystical  metaphysics  has  its  entire 
content  in  contradictions.  It  constructs  the  One,  from 
which  all  variety  and  manifoldness  must  come  without  any 
internal  principle  of  differentiation;  the  Will  that  must 
create  or  evolve  a  world  of  infinite  concrete  complexity,  with- 
out any  guidance  from  thought,  or  stimulus  of  motif,  or  end 
suggestive  of  an  idea ;  the  "  self-consistent "  Being,  which 
maintains  its  consistency  without  any  bond  between  the  dif- 
ferent momenta  of  its  own  being,  and  somehow  contrives  to 
make  a  good  show  of  itself  to  human  consciousness  without 
having  itself  any  consciousness  of  what  It  is  about.  Its  God 
is  the  Absolute ;  and  It  must  somehow  be  kept  freed  from  all 
responsibility  for  the  actual  relations  that  the  experience  of 
man  recognizes,  and  yet  must  be  thought  of,  felt  about,  and 
behaved  toward,  as  though  It  were  the  Ground  of  all  these 
relations.  In  a  word,  it  calls  on  us  to  recognize  the  Great 
Unrelated,  which  is,  nevertheless,  the  Source  of  all  relations. 

Within  the  bounds  of  human  knowledge,  then,  no  limits 
can  be  set  to  the  category  of  relation.  Whatever  man 
knows  as  real  is  known  as  actually  related.  Whatever  he 
conceives  of  as  real  is  conceived  of  as  related.  The  abso- 
lutely unrelated  is  both  unknown  and  inconceivable.  Reality 
as  a  whole,  must  be  known,  if  known  at  all,  as  a  System  of 


RELATION  171 

relations.  The  distinction  between  subjective  relations  and 
objective  relations,  or  relations  merely  existing  in  thought  and 
relations  existing  between  real  beings  must  be  admitted.  But 
this  is  a  very  different  distinction  from  that  between  being 
related  and  being  unrelated.  The  one  is  a  distinction  between 
the  partial  and  the  perfect,  or  between  error  and  truth,  or 
between  ignorance  and  knowledge.  The  other  is  a  distinction 
between  the  known  and  the  knowable,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  unknown  and  unknowable,  on  the  other  hand.  The  Unre- 
lated or  the  Unknown  is  absolutely  ineffective  and  valueless  as 
a  principle  of  explanation  for  the  known  and  the  conceivable 
world  of  realities. 

Reality,  then,  whether  in  the  form  of  concrete  actual 
things  and  minds,  or  when  considered  as  that  vague  sort  of 
Unity  with  which  our  thinking  endows  the  entire  system  of 
such  beings,  or  when  converted  into  an  explanatory  principle 
and  called  either  "Absolute"  or  "World-Ground"  —  is  al- 
ways known  as  a  Being-related.  But  if  one  keeps  asking, 
"  What  is  it  really  to  be  related  ? "  one  can  only  answer  with 
the  tautology :  "It  is,  in  general,  just  this  —  to  be  related." 
When  interpreted  by  an  appeal  to  that  basis  of  experience  in 
which  the  conception  of  relation  has  its  origin,  this  plainly 
means:  "To  be  related  is  to  be  an  object  of  knowledge, 
because  all  knowledge  is  constituted  through  the  function  of 
relating  faculty."  But  the  being-related  in  reality  of  other 
selves,  and  of  things  in  general,  cannot  be  conceived  of  as 
wholly  dependent  upon  the  functioning  of  my  relating  faculty, 
or  of  the  relating  faculties  of  the  other  finite  selves,  who  with 
me  constitute  the  community  of  human  minds.  The  total 
system  of  actualized  relations  is  not  mentally  represented  in 
any  one  stream  of  human  consciousness ;  nor  in  all  these 
various  streams  of  human  consciousness,  considered  in  their 
entire  flow.  Reality,  in  the  large  and  considered  as  a  system 
of  relations,  is  too  complex  and  vast  for  human  minds  com- 
pletely to  compass.  Indeed,  there  is  no  portion  of  Reality,  no 


172 


A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 


single  real  Thing,  whose  internal  and  external  relations  are 
all  completely  and  infallibly  known  by  the  entire  race  of 
thinking  men. 

Our  reflective  thinking  is  not,  however,  without  ample  and 
satisfactory  means  for  knowing  what  it  is  really  to  be  related. 
This  knowledge  is  like  that  which  we  have  of  all  the  cate- 
gories ;  for  they  are  all  forms  of  being  as  known  to  us,  and 
not  simply  forms  of  knowing.  It  is  in  se^-knowledge  that 
relating  as  a  function  of  the  knower,  and  reality  of  being 
related,  are  both  actually  united.  My  knowledge  of  my  Self, 
like  all  my  other  knowledge,  is  dependent  upon  the  develop- 
ment of  my  intellect,  of  my  relating  faculty.  Every  time  I 
know  myself,  the  achievement  implies  that  I  actively  relate 
the  different  momenta  or  aspects  of  conscious  life  to  one 
another  and  to  the  subject  called  Ego  or  Self ;  and  also  relate 
this  Self  to  other  beings  in  the  world  of  my  experience.  But 
to  achieve  this  kind  of  knowledge  I  must  actually  be  related, 
as  I  know  myself  to  be  related.  For  it  is  actual  changes, 
and  actual  states  and  actual  forms  of  mental  representation, 
whether  they  have  or  have  not  any  reference  external  to  my- 
self, which  are  the  objects  of  self-knowledge.  Or,  putting  the 
case  abstractly  :  as  a  knowing  Self,  I  actively  relate,  or  bring 
into  the  unity  of  an  object  of  cognition,  the  different  factors 
of  experience ;  but  as  a  self  known,  I  am  an  actual  living 
unification  of  different  factors  of  being.  If  to  know,  as  a  self 
knows  itself,  is  to  relate,  —  then  to  be,  as  a  self  knows  itself 
to  be,  is  to  be  really  related. 

What  has  just  been  said  amounts  to  this  important  con- 
clusion :  Really  to  be  related  is  really  to  be  as  I  knoiv  myself 
to  be  —  a  systematic  and  unitary  thought-being.  So  far  as  I 
really  am  a  being  related  —  an  actuality  of  relations  —  I  am 
not  dependent  upon  the  knowledge  of  other  knowers  for  this 
being.  I  am  what  I  am,  whether  you  know  me  to  be  such  or 
not.  But  both  as  knowing  myself,  and  as  being  my  Self,  I 
am  a  dependent  being.  In  my  knowledge  and  in  my  being, 


RELATION  173 

I  am  dependency  related  to  a  system  of  beings  which  I 
cannot  identify  with  myself.  Yet  these  beings,  too,  I  must 
know  and  conceive  of  after  the  analogy  of  my  self.1  This  is 
as  true  of  the  so-called  category  of  relation  as  it  is  true  of  any 
other  of  those  fundamental  forms  under  which  all  human 
knowledge  exists  and  develops.  I  know  other  selves  only  in 
terms  of  internal  or  external  relations.  Every  other  man  is 
known  to  me  as  a  being  that  is  the  subject  of  changes  in  the 
stream  of  his  consciousness  which  he  relates  to  each  other, 
and  to  himself,  as  I  relate  the  conscious  changes  in  that 
stream  of  consciousness  I  call  myself.  He  is  also  a  being 
that  stands  in  essentially  the  same  relations  to  other  men, 
and  to  the  system  of  physical  things,  as  those  in  which  I 
stand.  And  now  as  to  what  it  is  for  him  and  for  me,  and  for 
all  other  human  beings  who  have  developed  enough  to  know 
anything,  to  be  related  in  reality,  we  can  only  say :  It  is 
actually  to  "lead  the  same  kind  of  a  life"  that  each  one 
finds  himself  leading.  This  is  a  life  which  is  an  actualized 
system  of  relations,  all  referable  to  one  subject,  in  so  far  as 
they  are  internal,  and  yet  all  implying  other  actual  systems 
of  internal  relations,  to  which  this  particular  life  stands  de- 
pendently  and  externally  related. 

And  what  is  true  of  minds  respecting  this  category  is  also 
true  of  things.  So  far  as  the  application  of  the  conception 
of  relation  goes,  things  are  precisely  like  selves.  In  order  to 
be  actually  related,  and  not  merely  related  in  those  streams 
of  consciousness  which  know  themselves  and  which  call  them- 
selves men,  things  must  have  at  least  a  certain  amount  of 
self-hood  in  themselves.  No  reality  can  exist  simply  as  a 
system  of  relations  constructed  by  some  other  reality  ;  but  it 
must,  so  to  speak,  be  in  fact  a  ^/-constructed  and  self-con- 
sistent system  of  relations.  This  it  must  be,  in  order  to 
vindicate  any  slightest  claim  to  existence  in  reality.  This 

1  Compare  the  chapter  on  "  The  Knowledge  of  Things  and  Knowledge  of 
Self,"  chap,  vii.,  Philosophy  of  Knowledge. 


174  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

takes  us  back  to  the  truth  that  a  real  Thing  must  be  a  thought- 
unity  ;  a  series  of  states,  that  has  set  itself  into  a  kind  of 
partial  and  temporary  independence  by  behaving  in  consist- 
ency with  some  idea.  What,  however,  this  particular  thing, 
A,  must  be,  in  order  to  be  actually  related  (and  it  cannot 
really  be  at  all  without  being  actually  related),  just  that  every 
other  particular  thing  —  whether  B,  C,  D,  etc.  — must  also 
be.  Indeed,  the  partial  and  temporary  independence  which 
things  must  have,  in  order  to  be  regarded  as  individuals,  is 
itself  only  their  more  or  less  consistent  forms  of  reaction 
upon  an  environment  of  other  beings.  Thus  under  the  cat- 
egory of  relation  the  whole  world  of  concrete  realities  appears 
as  a  vast  system  of  relations  maintained  amongst  beings  that 
have,  at  least,  a  partial  and  temporary  existence  as  u  self- 
constructed  and  self-consistent  systems  "  of  relations.  The 
interior  relations  of  each  being,  whether  Self  or  Thing,  are 
themselves,  as  it  were,  dependent  upon  and  somehow  absorbed 
in  an  all-inclusive  System  of  Relations. 

The  entire  collection  of  concrete  real  beings  —  things  and 
selves,  actually  known  or  only  ideally  conceivable  —  is  actually 
inter-related.  Only  thus  can  any  one  of  these  real  beings  be 
known;  only  thus  can  the  collection  be  conceived  of  as  a 
system,  as  constituting  one  World.  What  now  must  this 
category  mean,  when  we  yield  to  the  compulsion  which  the 
inherent  constitution  of  all  human  knowledge  imposes  upon 
us,  and  apply  it  to  the  entire  collection  of  beings, —  to  the 
one  World  ?  Nothing  different  from  what  we  have  already 
found  it  to  mean.  For  the  categories  are  not  to  be  threat- 
ened or  coaxed.  They  do  not  change  their  nature,  when 
applied  to  Nature  —  not  even  if  this  word  be  spelled  with  a 
capital.  They  do  not  bow  to  the  demands  of  aspiration,  — 
not  even  when  men  begin  to  talk  of  the  Absolute  or  of  God. 
It  follows,  then,  that  a  System  of  Relations,  conceived  of  as  a 
totality  and  complete  in  itself  can  only  be  actualized  in  terms  of 
a  Self.  In  vain  does  the  relating  faculty  strive  to  rid  itself 


RELATION  175 

of  this  necessity  imposed  by  its  own  constitution.  Would  it 
not  be  well  to  bail  the  necessity  joyfully  as  a  revelation  of 
fundamental  truth  ?  The  mind  of  man  cannot  conceive  of 
"  the  unrelated,"  under  such  terms  as  the  Absolute,  the  Un- 
known, the  All-One,  the  self -consistent  Whole.  All  such 
terms  have  their  uses  and  their  values,  in  the  effort  to  set 
forth  certain  aspects  of  Reality,  conceived  of  as  a  System  of 
self-constructed  and  self-consistent  Relations ;  they  also  have 
important  bearings  upon  the  practical  life  of  morals  and 
religion.  But  the  truth  of  man's  cognitive  experience  remains 
the  same :  The  world  that  is  either  immediately  given,  or  lies 
implicit,  in  this  experience  is  necessarily  a  unity  of  related 
beings ;  and  this  world  can  be  conceived  of  as  such  a  unity, 
only  in  recognition  of  the  truth  that  it  is  really  —  so  far  now 
only  as  the  category  of  relation  goes — an  Absolute  Self. 

We  have  stated  the  conclusion  of  a  criticism  of  that  con- 
ception which  is  "  the  mother  of  all  the  categories,"  under 
the  following  limitation,  —  "  so  far  now  only  as  the  category 
of  relation  goes."  This  limitation  was  added  in  order  to 
avoid  an  injudicious  and  illogical  haste  in  trying  to  reap  the 
fruits  of  critical  and  metaphysical  cultivation.  But  even 
when  stated  with  this  limitation,  there  are  two  most  import- 
ant corollaries  which  follow  immediately  from  the  main  pro- 
position. And,  first :  The  total  system  of  actually  existing 
relations  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  related  in  an  external 
way :  It  cannot  be  related  to  some  other  being,  which  is 
to  be  conceived  of  as  standing,  so  to  speak,  upon  terms  of 
equality  with  itself.  The  rather  must  all  actual  relations  be 
considered  as  really  internal  to  this  System ;  they  are  its 
"  self-consistent "  modes  of  behavior,  the  forms  of  its  Life. 
They  all  belong  to  Itself ;  they  are  consistent  with  Itself ; 
they  are  determined  by  Its  own  immanent  principles  of  be- 
havior. From  different  human  points  of  view,  the  changing 
relations  seem  partly  subjective  and  partly  objective,  partly 
imaginary  and  partly  true  to  actual  fact.  From  these 


176  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

points  of  view,  the  distinction  between  relations  that  are 
merely  in  thought  and  relations  that  are  also  in  reality  is  a 
distinction  valid  for  the  experience  of  the  individual  knower  or 
mind.  From  these  points  of  view  also,  certain  relations  are 
internal  and  belong  to  the  Self,  and  certain  others  are  exter- 
nal and  belong  to  the  Self  as  somehow  united  with  other 
selves  and  other  things.  But  these  points  of  view,  although 
valid  for  cognition  and  revealing  to  us  the  very  nature  of 
reality,  are  only  partial.  From  the  point  of  view  from  which 
the  entire  System  of  Relations  must  be  regarded  as  having  a 
Unity  analogous  to  that  which  we  know  ourselves  to  have,  all 
relations  appear  as  alike  interior  and  yet  actual. 

It  is  in  some  such  way  as  the  foregoing  that  we  must,  for  the 
present,  understand  the  phrase,  an  "  Absolute  Self."  This  is 
the  very  opposite  of  regarding  the  supreme,  the  complete, 
Reality  as  equivalent  to  the  Unknown,  because  the  unrelated. 
This  Self  is  "  absolute,"  not  because  It  is  unrelated,  but  because 
all  relations  must  be  regarded  as,  for  It,  self-constructed 
and  self-consistent.  Within  this  system  —  and  only  as  within 
this  system  can  any  concrete  reality  exist  —  all  particular 
beings  have  a  kind  of  double  actuality.  They  are  partial  and 
temporary  unities,  comprising  a  variety  of  internal  relations, 
and  standing  to  each  other  in  a  variety  of  external  relations ; 
but  the  One  Reality  constructs  and  comprehends  them  all; 
for  all  of  their  relations,  both  internal  and  external,  are 
within  the  One  Reality. 

But  the  second  of  the  two  corollaries  which  follow  from  the 
attempt  to  apply  the  conception  of  relation  to  the  total  system 
of  real  beings  is  equally  important.  We  have  spoken  of 
self-knowledge  as  bringing  into  our  cognitive  experience  a 
certain  system  of  relations  that  are  partially  "  self-constructed 
and  self -consistent."  Such  language  implies,  however,  that 
intellect  and  will  combine  in  the  realization  of  such  a  system. 
It  is  intellect  "functioning"  or  active  intelligence,  which  con- 
structs that  system  of  subjective  relations  which  is  called 


RELATION  177 

knowledge,  and  which  is  in  its  essential  character  a  relating 
of  different  items  and  "  momenta "  of  the  flowing  stream  of 
consciousness.  It  is  the  same  active  intelligence  which  be- 
comes the  object  of  knowledge,  whenever  the  Self  is  known. 
In  other  words,  to  know  relations,  and  to  be  related,  as  the 
knowing  self  acts,  and  the  known  self  exists  —  this  is  nothing 
less  than  to  live  the  life  of  a  conscious  intelligence.  And  only 
as  some  knower  projects  into  the  otherwise  senseless  and  dead 
thing  the  semblance  of  a  principle  of  active  intelligence  can 
even  that  "thing"  be  known  as  actually  existent.  So  far 
forth  and  only  so  far  forth,  as  it  constructs  and  consistently 
maintains  the  appropriate  internal  and  external  relations,  can 
any  existence  really  be  related.  But  this  is  to  realize  both 
Intellect  and  Will. 

What  is  true  of  the  individual  beings  of  the  world  is  a 
fortiori  true  of  the  system  of  related  beings,  of  that  One  Being 
in  which  all  actual  relations  have  their  ground.  An  actual 
system  of  relations  can  exist  only  within  such  a  Reality  as 
combines  all  the  powers  of  an  active  intelligence,  and  is  thus 
a  living  and  unifying  Intellect  and  Will.  But  here  are  con- 
ceptions of  Unity,  Force,  Law,  and  Final  Purpose,  either 
quite  implicit  or  only  half  concealed. 


12 


CHAPTER  VIII 

TIME 

BOTH  implicit  and  express  reference  has  already  been  made 
to  two  of  the  universal  forms  of  knowledge  whose  characteristics 
differ  in  a  marked  way  from  those  of  all  the  other  categories. 
Analysis  of  the  all-inclusive  concept  of  reality  showed  that 
every  particular  being  is  known  as  existing  "  in  time  " ;  and 
that  every  other  being  than  one's  own  — in  the  most  interior 
and  self-centred  conception  of  the  self  —  is  also  known  as 
existing  "  in  space."  Neither  is  a  knowledge  which  shall  set 
us  into  relations  with  other  beings  in  a  system  of  reality,  pos- 
sible without  applying  to  ourselves  some  of  the  various  modi- 
fications of  spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations.  No  ethical 
or  social  existence  or  development  is  known  or  conceivable  by 
man,  which  is  not  based  upon  a  certain  confidence  in  the 
trans-subjective  reality  of  space.  But  especially  in  discussing 
the  metaphysics  of  change  and  of  relation,  constant  reference 
was  either  made  or  implied  to  the  universal  character  of  the 
conceptions  of  time  and  space.  The  particular  beings  which 
are  made  real  to  man  by  his  experience  with  natural  objects 
and  with  his  fellow  men,  all  exist,  change,  and  enter  into 
various  relations,  "in  time"  and  "in  space." 

What,  however,  is  the  significance  for  metaphysics  of  the 
language  popularly  employed  when  speaking  of  these  concep- 
tions ;  —  since  this  language  is  so  notably  different  from  that 
employed  in  speaking  of  the  other  categories  ?  All  minds  and 
things  are  said  to  exist,  to  change,  to  develop,  to  be  related, 
"  in  time  "  and  "  in  space."  But  for  such  conceptions  as  "  pure 


TIME  179 

being,"  change  or  becoming,  and  relation,  similar  terms  are 
not  customarily  employed.  To  be  sure,  one  might  say  that 
"  things  fleet "  and  "  things  extend,"  in  somewhat  the  same 
way  as  that  in  which  they  are  said  to  exist,  change,  grow,  and 
to  stand  related.  One  may  also  depart  from  the  plain  talk  of 
workaday  life  far  enough  to  remark,  that  "  the  times  are  in  a 
process  of  change,"  or  that  "  the  places  of  our  former  acquain- 
tance are  no  longer  in  existence." 

If  all  the  varied  uses  of  different  languages  are  taken  into 
the  account,  it  will  appear  that  the  conceptions  figuratively 
expressed  by  the  preposition  "  in,"  or  its  equivalents,  are 
exceedingly  numerous  and  difficult  to  bring  together  under 
any  single  conception.  Their  employment,  however,  in  con- 
nection with  abstract  conceptions  answering  to  the  words 
"space"  and  "time"  implies  that  what  answers  to  these 
conceptions  is  thought  of,  not  as  a  reality,  nor  a  quality,  nor 
a  relation  of  realities,  but  as  a  medium  of  realities.  Things 
exist,  change,  grow,  and  stand  related ;  and  among  the  quali- 
fications which  can  be  applied  to  their  existence,  change,  and 
growth,  are  those  of  duration  and  extension.  But  when  an 
attempt  is  made  to  express  our  conviction  as  to  what  in  reality 
it  is  that  makes  possible  the  enduring  and  the  extension  of 
things,  as  well  as  their  changes,  their  growth,  and  their  vari- 
eties of  relations,  we  find  ourselves  forced  back  into  the  same 
significant  figure  of  speech.  The  answer  must  always  be  given 
by  a  repetition  of  such  phrases  as  "  in  time  "  and  "  in  space." 
Time  and  Space  are  thus  regarded  in  the  light  of  universal 
"  media."  Things,  with  all  that  they  really  are  and  all  that 
belongs  to  them,  are  "  in  "  these  media. 

It  is  characteristic  of  naive,  popular  consciousness  to  accept 
without  reflection  the  figures  of  speech  which  it  employs  for 
the  expression  of  knowledge  and  for  the  practical  purposes  of 
communication  between  men.  The  positive  sciences,  too, 
even  when  the  conceptions  of  time  and  space  constitute  the 
chief  material  of  their  investigation,  do  not  essentially  change 


180  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  significance  of  the  popular  figures  of  speech.  Mathematics 
and  mathematical  physics  indeed,  treat  the  succession  and 
duration  of  things,  their  extension,  and  their  changes  of  posi- 
tion, as  though  they  were  entities.  They  thus  develop  an 
elaborate  science  of  temporal  and  spatial  relations,  and  they 
work  out  mathematical  formulas  for  the  exact  statement  of 
these  relations.  But  the  student  of  these  sciences  knows 
quite  well  that  he  is  only  dealing  with  abstractions  ;  that  there 
really  are  no  successions  and  durations  and  extensions,  exist- 
ing independently  of  concrete  realities ;  much  less  even  is  there 
any  single  existence  corresponding  to  the  conception  of  dura- 
tion as  such,  or  of  extension  as  such.  He  needs  only  a  little 
reflection  to  convince  him  that  these  qualifications  of  things 
must  somehow  be  considered  as  resulting  from  the  orderly 
arrangement  in  their  action  upon  him  of  different  " momenta" 
or  parts  of  Reality,  which  have  to  be  combined  into  some  kind  of 
a  living  unity  in  order  to  lay  claim  to  be  real  existences.  Of 
course,  too,  those  sciences  which  make  no  pretence  to  a  scien- 
tific treatment  of  temporal  and  spatial  qualities  and  relations 
do  not  need  to  depart  from  the  popular  and  figurative  point  of 
view.  They  may  be  content  to  employ  naively  the  figure  of 
a  "  medium  "  in  which  realities  exist. 

Metaphysical  theories,  with  their  ontological  conceptions 
answering  to  the  words,  Space  and  Time,  find  no  difficulty  in 
accepting  the  popular  and  the  scientific  points  of  view,  —  at 
least,  so  far  as  their  negations  are  concerned.  Indeed,  they 
are  all  accustomed  to  deny  an  actual  existence  to  these  cate- 
gories, whether  as  themselves  entities  or  as  states  and  quali- 
ties of  entities.  Glaring  internal  contradictions  can  be  shown 
to  result  from  the  attempt  to  regard  space  and  time  as 
entities.  Metaphysicians  are  wont  to  suppose  that  they  have 
conferred  some  great  favor  upon  common  sense  and  upon 
physical  science  when  the  results  of  the  uncritical  ways  of 
regarding  these  categories  have  been  pointed  out. 

The  truth  is,  however,  that  this  negative  criticism  has  been 


TIME  181 

so  often  and  so  thoroughly  done,  that  no  great  amount  of 
originality  can  ever  be  displayed  in  doing  it  over  again.  This 
is  especially,  though  by  no  means  exclusively,  true  of  meta- 
physics since  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of  the  Kantian  criti- 
cism. The  Hindu  philosophy  discovered  centuries  ago  that 
time  and  space  are  not  only  illusory,  but  are  the  creators  of 
illusion.  To  know  reality  only  as  spatial  and  temporal  is 
to  be  the  victim  of  Maya.  Kant's  critique  of  these  transcen- 
dental forms  of  all  sensuous  cognitions,  and  of  imagination 
as  based  upon  and  limited  by  such  cognition,  was  relatively 
meagre  and  dogmatic  enough.  Even  Schopenhauer,  who 
intended  to  exalt  the  truth  of  perception  in  opposition  to  the 
truth  of  ratiocination,  finds  in  time  and  space  nothing  more 
sure  than  those  subjective  forms  of  differentiation  which 
arise  from  the  illusory  activity  of  intellect ;  and  intellect  is 
mere  product  of  the  brain,  the  way  in  which  blind  Will 
gets  itself  duped  with  show  of  knowledge.  But  as  to  the 
true  Nature  of  Reality,  space  and  time  have,  of  course, 
nothing  to  tell  us. 

Now  if  any  modern  student  of  metaphysics  were  likely  to 
adopt  the  senseless  delusion  that  time  is  really  some  kind  of 
a  long-drawn  out  entity,  which  has  only  length  and  neither 
breadth  nor  thickness,  or  that  space  is  actually  a  spread-out 
being  with  the  three  dimensions  of  length,  breadth,  and 
thickness,  it  might  seem  worth  while  to  take  pains  over  such 
crudities.  Then  the  customary  questions  might  be  repeat- 
edly proposed  :  "  In  what  is  this  entity  of  time  drawn  out  ?  " 
and  "  In  what  is  the  three-dimensioned  being  of  space 
spread  out  ? "  It  seems  to  us,  however,  to  promise  a  better 
motived  and  conducted  course  of  criticism,  if  we  begin  by 
accepting  the  confession  of  everybody  that,  somehow,  space 
and  time  are  like  "  media "  for  the  orderly  arrangement  of 
existences,  of  changes,  and  of  relations. 

And,  in  truth,  what  the  common-sense  of  folk  generally, 
and  of  the  student  of  physical  science  in  particular,  objects  to 


182  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

having  concluded  by  the  metaphysicians  is  an  affair  of  quite 
another  kind.  Minds  and  things  are  entities,  —  so  the  aver- 
age man  thinks ;  changes  actually  occur  in  them,  and  rela- 
tions actually  exist  between  them.  Just  as  firmly  does  the 
popular  and  naive  consciousness  insist  on  the  conviction  that 
time  and  space  have  something  to  tell  us  about  the  Nature 
of  Reality.  And  when  reality  is  spoken  of  in  connection  with 
the  conceptions  of  time  and  space,  its  meaning  does  not  corre- 
spond to  what  Kant  meant  by  "  phenomenal  reality."  The 
cognitive  consciousness  of  mankind  refuses  to  credit  the 
doctrine  of  the  merely  subjective  origin  and  applicability  of 
time  and  space.  In  this  refusal  our  sympathies  are  with  the 
cognitive  consciousness  of  mankind,  —  and  this  to  the  extent 
of  accusing  the  scholastic  metaphysics  of  having,  as  a  rule, 
sophisticated  the  whole  problem.  In  other  words,  the  con- 
ditions, nature,  and  valid  implicates  of  our  knowledge  of 
reality  are  such  as  to  refute  the  Kantian  view  of  the  trans- 
cendental ideality  only,  and  to  compel  the  opposite  view  of 
the  transcendental  reality  also,  of  both  time  and  space. 

This,  then,  is  the  state  of  the  problem  offered  by  the  cate- 
gories of  time  and  space.  They  are  universal  and  inescap- 
able forms  of  knowledge;  and  knowledge  always  has  to  do 
with  reality.  But  when  one  comes  to  inquire  into  the  rela- 
tion existing  between  these  forms  of  knowledge  and  either 
the  concrete  realities  or  that  System  of  Reality  which  it  is 
the  aim  of  metaphysical  thinking  to  conceive  of  as  a  whole, 
this  relation  appears  peculiar  —  even  unique.  Time  and 
space  cannot  be  identified  with  any  of  these  realities,  or  with 
this  system  as  a  whole ;  neither  can  they  be  spoken  of  as 
qualifying  particular  beings,  or  as  expressing  one  aspect  of 
the  sum-total  of  being,  in  the  same  way  as  can  the  other 
essential  characteristics  of  reality.  Here,  then,  is  an  appar- 
ent contradiction,  —  or  rather  a  puzzle  which  requires  further 
reflective  thinking  for  its  theoretical  solution.  For  the  meta- 
physics which  resolves  time  and  space  into  purely  subjective 


TIME  183 

forms  of  knowledge,  leaves  men  a  world  of  mere  "  appear- 
ances" for  their  known  world,  and  offers  to  their  faith  an 
unknowable  abstraction  —  a  Unity  that  is,  but  is  no  what  — 
as  the  only  "  Reality."  How,  then,  shall  we  so  interpret  our 
cognitive  use  of  the  categories  of  time  and  space  as  to  construe 
reality  in  valid  terms  of  human  knowledge  ? 

The  question  just  raised  we  shall  now  try  to  answer  for  the 
category  of  Time.  This  answer  is  most  fitly  approached  by 
briefly  noting  the  principal  points  respecting  the  psycholo- 
gical origin  of  the  time-concept.  With  all  growth  of  knowl- 
edge the  development  of  cognitive  "  time-consciousness "  is 
inseparably  connected.  The  connection  is  reciprocal.  For 
time-consciousness  never  develops  in  the  form  simply  of  a 
knowledge  of  particular  objects  in  the  "  stream  of  conscious- 
ness " ;  —  never,  also,  as  a  conception  of  merely  empty  time. 

In  tracing  the  psychological  origin  of  this  category,  the 
experience  in  which  the  most  primary  and  rudimentary  time- 
consciousness  is  formed  must  first  of  all  be  considered.  This 
experience  consists  of  a  succession  of  psychoses,  all  of  which 
are  conscious  processes  of  greater  or  less  duration,  and  are 
capable  of  being  marked  off  from  each  other  by  the  subject 
of  them,  through  their  differences  in  intellectual,  emotional, 
and  volitional  content.  Ordinarily  these  glide  into  each 
other  with  a  somewhat  smooth  and  continuous  flow.  Not 
infrequently,  however,  sudden  and  rude  shocks  occur,  which 
bring  into  sharper  contrast  the  different  qualifications  of  the 
successive  states,  and  so  emphasize  both  the  duration  of  the 
single  states  and  the  transition  from  one  state  to  another. 
But  this  sort  of  experience  affords  material  for  the  develop- 
ment of  a  genuine  time-consciousness,  provided  —  but  only 
provided  —  some  intelligence  can  look  upon  it  from  an  ideal 
point  of  view.  As  a  mere  feature  of  the  stream  of  conscious- 
ness, unrecognized  and  not  understood,  such  an  experience 
contains  nothing  fully  to  account  for  the  knowledge  of  Self 
or  of  Things  as  "  really  being  in  time." 


184  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Neither  is  it  through  mere  association  of  conscious  pro- 
cesses, however  complicated  and  habitually  experienced,  that 
a  true  time-consciousness  can  be  developed.  Such  a  develop- 
ment requires  discriminating  consciousness  and  growth  of  in- 
tellectual powers ;  and  so  much  intellectual  discernment  is  not 
a  simple  affair.  On  the  contrary,  it  involves  voluntary  atten- 
tion, with  its  "  alternate  diffusion  and  concentration,"  moving 
"  like  the  foot  of  a  snail,  which  never  leaves  the  surface  it  is 
traversing"  (to  borrow  Dr.  Ward's  illustration).  It  involves 
also  growth  of  self-consciousness ;  since  recognitive  memory 
is  necessary  to  any  growth  of  the  higher  forms  of  time-con- 
sciousness. Events  must  be  set  by  such  memory  into  a 
certain  time-relation  with  other  events,  all  of  which  belong 
to  the  cognitive  experience  of  the  same  self,  as  a  succession 
of  psychoses.  Inference  and  constructive  imagination  are 
forms  of  mental  life  that  are  also  necessary  to  the  rise  and 
the  growth  of  the  same  experience,  all  of  which  includes  this 
category.  The  time  during  which  I  have  been  existent, 
although  always  in  a  succession  of  changing  states,  is  by  no 
means  all  covered  by  my  most  earnest  and  successful  efforts 
at  recollection ;  much  less  is  it  all  representable  in  terms  of 
any  one  act  of  recognitive  memory.  Between  the  definite 
"  I-am-now  "  of  self-consciousness  and  the  less  definite  "  I- 
was-then"  of  memory  intervenes  the  indefinite  "  I-have-been" 
of  inference  ;  for  this  link  is  not  to  be  filled  up  either  by 
self-consciousness  or  by  memory,  but  only  by  a  combination 
of  thought  and  imagination  which  sketches  a  mere  schema  of 
possible  particulars.  And  these  same  faculties  project  into 
the  third  form  of  time  —  the  future  —  what  is  neither  remem- 
bered as  past  nor  consciously  envisaged  as  belonging  to  the 
present. 

All  the  life  of  the  Self  —  as  feeling,  will,  and  intellect,  in 
various  forms  of  the  manifestation  of  these  faculties  —  is 
therefore  concerned  in  the  origin  of  time-consciousness.  If 
now,  from  this  point  of  inquiry,  the  question  be  raised, 


TIME  185 

"  Where,  then,  is  time  ?  "  the  reply  must  be  :  "  My  time 
is  in  me ;  and  yours  is  in  you,"  etc.  That  is  to  say : 
Time,  as  the  subjective  but  universal  and  necessary  form  of 
cognitive  experience,  is  both  actually  experienced  in  the  life 
of  the  self  and  is  also  all  constructed  by  the  activity  of  the 
self.  It  is,  so  to  speak,  carried  along  with  every  act  of 
knowledge  as  the  formal  condition  of  any  such  act  taking 
place.  If  from  the  same  point  of  view  an  explanation  be 
sought  for  the  three  kinds  of  time,  —  present,  past,  and 
future, —  psychology  answers  in  essentially  the  same  way. 
Present  time  for  us  is  the  construct  of  our  own  self-conscious 
self,  dependent  upon  the  "  grasp  of  consciousness "  for  its 
clearness  of  outline,  its  fulness  of  content,  and  its  relation 
to  other  moments  in  the  life  of  the  same  self.  Past  time  is 
the  construct  of  our  own  self,  exercising  recognitive  memory 
and  so  relating  other  moments,  with  more  or  less  clearness 
of  outline  and  fulness  of  content,  to  the  present  moment. 
And  future  time  is  real  in  anticipation,  when,  by  an  act  of 
thought  and  imagination  we  outstrip  the  actual  succession  of 
our  self-conscious  states,  and,  abstracting  from  what  is  hap- 
pening now  around  us,  project  the  self  into  conditions  differ- 
ent from  those  known  to  be  present.  For  the  only  way  to 
"  realize  "  the  future  is  to  imagine  one's  self  so  changed  in 
feeling,  thought,  or  environment,  as  to  separate  between  this 
self  to  be,  and  the  now  self-conscious  or  the  remembered 
self.  The  leap  forward  in  anticipation  and  the  leap  back- 
ward in  memory  carry  with  them  the  same  characteristic  exist- 
ence, and  involve  the  exercise  of  the  same  mental  activities  ; 
only  the  emphasis  laid  upon  these  activities  in  their  distribu- 
tion is  different.  This  truth  is  illustrated  by  the  well  known 
fact  of  psychology  that,  subjectively,  memory  binding  us  to 
the  past  and  imagination  transporting  us  into  the  future  are 
often  mingled  and  even  interchanged.  Thus  men  not  infre- 
quently remember  what  has  yet  to  be,  or  what  has  already 
been  only  in  imagination ;  while  what  has  really  been  in  the 


186  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

past  often  appears  to  them  rather  as  "  in  a  dream,"  —  that  is, 
as  matter  of  the  image-making  faculty  in  its  most  illusory 
forms  of  activity. 

From  the  psychological  point  of  view  simply,  then,  there  is 
no  difference  in  the  "  actuality "  of  time,  whether  present, 
past,  or  future.  Each  of  these  three  forms  of  time  really  is 
—  only  as  the  construct  of  the  active  self ;  neither  of  them 
is  any  more  real  than  are  the  others  except  as  it  is  made  to 
be  real  by  the  action  of  this  self.  It  is  customary,  indeed, 
to  affirm  that  only  present  time  has  reality;  only  "now" 
actually  is.  Thus  Lotze,  even  after  confessing  that  "  there 
would  be  no  meaning  in  the  statement  that  things  exist  in 
time,  if  they  did  not  incur  some  modification  by  so  existing 
which  they  would  not  incur  if  they  did  not  exist  in  time,"  l  goes 
on  later  to  deny  the  reality  of  both  past  and  future,  and  to 
reduce  to  an  abstraction  "  the  proper  meaning  of  that  reality 
which  we  ascribe  only  to  the  present."  The  vacillating  posi- 
tion which  this  philosopher  holds  toward  the  category  of  time 
is,  perhaps,  as  well  summed  up  in  the  following,  as  in  any 
other  sentence  quotable  from  his  writings:  "There  is  no 
real  time  in  which  occurrences  run  their  course ;  but  in  the 
single  elements  of  the  universe  which  are  capable  of  a  lim- 
ited knowledge  there  develops  itself  the  idea  of  a  time  in 
which  they  assign  themselves  a  position  in  relation  to  their 
more  remote  or  nearer  conditions  as  to  what  is  more  or  less 
long  past,  and  in  relation  to  their  more  remote  or  nearer 
consequences  as  to  a  future  that  is  to  be  looked  for  more  or 
less  late." 

It  would  not  aid  our  discussion  to  point  out  the  contra- 
diction between  these  two  sentences  of  Lotze's,  or  to  show 
how  profoundly  his  treatment  of  the  category  of  time  involves 
him  in  other  contradictions  with  the  fundamental  place 
given  in  his  philosophy  to  the  principle  of  becoming.  But 
these,  and  all  similar  declarations  so  rife  in  systems  of  meta- 

1  System  of  Philosophy ;  Part  II.,  Metaphysic ;  Book  II.,  chap.  iii. 


TIME  1ST 

physics,  are  challenges  to  review  the  actual  facts  of  cognitive 
experience.  These  facts,  when  treated  from  the  standpoint 
of  psychology,  remind  us  that  the  "  now  "  of  consciousness  is 
no  more  real  than  is  the  "  there-was"  or  the  "  there-will-be" 
of  consciousness.  Psychologically  considered,  in  every  act 
of  recognitive  memory  the  past  is  realized ;  and  in  every 
rational  act  of  anticipatory  inference  and  prediction  the 
future  is  realized.  Without  development  of  time-conscious- 
ness in  all  its  three  forms,  as  consciousness  of  the  present, 
consciousness  of  the  past,  and  consciousness  of  the  future,  no 
knowledge  can  take  place. — Things  can  no  more  be  real  "  in  " 
the  mere  present,  than  in  the  long  past  or  the  remote  future. 
In  other  words,  in  order  that  any  real  beings  may  exist  and 
become  known  to  us,  the  continuance  of  time  —  as  present, 
past,  and  future  —  must  be  regarded  as  the  medium  in  which 
these  beings  exist.  So  that  if  time  were  purely  subjective, 
the  temporal  existence  of  real  beings  at  all  would  not  be 
secured  by  positing  some  peculiar  reality  for  that  particular, 
ever  changing  and  never  abiding  moment  which  we  call 
"  now."  The  actuality  of  time  present  alone  does  not  suffice 
to  enrich  the  content  of  reality. 

The  psychological  origin  of  time-consciousness,  is,  then,  to 
be  found  in  that  complex  and  peculiar  form  of  functioning  to 
which  the  mind  subjects  its  own  states.  As  an  active,  compar- 
ing, and  self-conscious  intellect,  it  knows  all  these  states  as 
more  or  less  enduring,  and  as  successive.  Those  states 
whose  content  is  constituted  with  little  conscious  reference  to 
their  place  in  an  order  of  succession  which  involves  other 
states,  it  knows  as  its  own  present.  Other  conscious  pro- 
cesses it  knows  as  memories,  and  these  are  set  somewhere  in  a 
place  as  "  past "  for  the  self ;  still  others  it  projects  into  im- 
agined (not  merely  self-conscious  or  remembered)  relations  as 
states  that  may  yet  be.  All  these  three  ways  of  knowing  its 
own  states  in  an  orderly  way  necessarily  enter  into  the  experi- 
ence in  which  its  consciousness  of  time  originates  and  grows. 


188  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Not  only  is  it  true,  however,  that  each  one's  time-conscious- 
ness is  his  own  mental  construct,  but  each  one's  time-con- 
sciousness is  different  from  every  other's  —  peculiar  to  himself. 
Both  observation  and  experiment  demonstrate  this.  The 
"  grasp  of  consciousness  "  differs  in  different  individuals  ;  and 
it  is  the  grasp  of  consciousness  which  gives  to  the  "  now  "  of 
time-consciousness  all  the  reality  it  has.  This  active  con- 
structive power  differs  greatly  in  dependence  upon  age,  upon 
original  constitution,  voluntary  attention,  interest,  education, 
and  environment.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  time-conscious- 
ness in  its  imaginative  work  of  constructing  those  brief  in- 
tervals of  time  that  elapse  between  two  similar  events  in 
consciousness.  Very  young  children  have  almost  no  power 
of  this  sort ;  with  them,  indeed,  the  past  has  little  or  no  real- 
ity. But  the  same  restricted  use  of  imagination  makes  it 
impossible  for  undeveloped  minds  to  realize  in  consciousness, 
as  a  matter  of  time,  any  future  event.  They  will  have  every- 
thing they  desire  in  the  all-absorbing,  but  itself  vague  and  feeble, 
present.  So  do  adults,  too,  differ  greatly  in  respect  to  both  the 
perfection  of  their  memories  of  the  past  and  also  their  reach 
of  anticipatory  image-making  toward  the  future.  Some  men 
come  to  live  much  in  the  past ;  others  much  in  the  future ; 
but  most  men  live  most  in  the  present.  All  of  which  means, 
simply  enough,  that  some  streams  of  consciousness  consist 
mostly  of  memory-images ;  some  of  perceptions  and  self- 
conscious  thoughts  and  feeling;  some  of  projected  fancy- 
images  or  inferences  taking  the  form  of  anticipation.  For 
each  individual  self  it  is  also  true  that  time-consciousness 
itself  differs,  in  its  grasp  upon  the  present,  in  its  range  of 
memory,  in  its  vividness  of  projected  image-making,  in  its 
confident  ratiocinations. 

There  is,  therefore,  no  unity  to  time-consciousness,  regarded 
as  a  purely  subjective  affair,  which  can  apply  beyond  the  uni- 
fying actus  of  the  Self.  There  is  no  reality  to  one  Time,  when 
viewed  from  this  point  of  view ;  there  are  only  times  many, 


TIME  189 

and  varied,  and  incapable  of  producing  even  the  appearance 
of  a  real  world  of  things.  Being  themselves  "  out  of  joint," 
they  cannot  produce  a  system  of  events  known  as  happening  in 
one  time.  The  merely  subjective  view  of  this  category  will  not, 
therefore,  satisfy  the  conditions  of  man's  experience  with 
realities.  For  these  conditions  require  at  the  least  the  reali- 
zation of  a  certain  unity,  and  some  realistic  basis  for  such 
unity,  among  the  different  time-consciousnesses.  Other- 
wise, men  could  never  "  come  to  time,"  whether  in  a  social 
way  or  in  the  way  of  agreement  upon  the  bare  facts  of 
the  physical  and  natural  sciences. 

Let  the  utter  inability,  the  abject  imbecility,  of  merely 
subjective  time  be  illustrated  by  the  following  hypothesis : 
The  stream  of  consciousness  called  A,  considered  time-wise,  is 
a  certain  ordering  of  psychoses,  such  as  Aly  A2,  AB,  A±.  .  .  . 
An.  Some  of  these  psychoses  have  reference  to  the  present ; 
some  are  memories  of  the  past ;  and  some  are  anticipations 
or  predictions  of  the  future.  But  the  stream  of  consciousness 
called  B  is  also,  considered  time-wise,  a  certain  quite  differ- 
ent succession  of  psychoses,  such  as  S19  B^  Bs,  B±.  .  .  .  Bn. 
Now,  without  the  hypothesis  of  some  bond  of  unity,  it  is  left 
to  chance  whether  the  "  now "  of  A  and  B  shall  ever  be 
actually  coincident  —  a  present  time,  common  to  both  streams 
of  consciousness  in  its  applicability  to  any  particular 
object.  Without  some  similar  hypothesis  it  is  also  a 
matter  of  pure  chance  whether  the  memories  of  both  shall 
ever  coincide  in  their  acts  of  locating  events  in  past  time ; 
whether  they  shall  ever  give  to  any  event  the  same  location 
in  the  ideal  stream  of  past  time.  Why  should  A  pick  out 
the  same  locality  for  the  event  Jf,  which  is  given  to  the  same 
event  by  B,  unless  the  event  itself  has  something  to  say 
about  its  own  proper  location  ?  But  for  both  A  and  B  the 
event  X  was  originally  a  mere  mental  representation,  per- 
haps of  the  presentative  order  ;  and  regarded  from  points  of 
view  which  are  wholly  subjective  and  so  disparate,  it  could 


190  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

not  determine  both  streams  of  consciousness  to  locate  it  in 
memory  at  the  same  place.  What  is  an  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  preventing  A  and  B  coming  to  some  "  common  time  "  is 
an  overwhelming  obstacle  in  the  way  of  any  multitude  of 
men  coming  to  the  same  time.  Thus  the  purely  subjective 
view  of  time-consciousness  destroys  the  possibility  of  society, 
of  history,  of  the  intercourse  and  development  of  the  race. 
And  that  it  destroys  the  possibility  of  every  form  of  science 
which  requires  the  exact  measurement  of  time,  there  is  no 
need  even  to  illustrate. 

It  is  customary  to  rescue  time  from  the  devouring  maw  of 
such  solipsistic  idealism  by  compounding  a  doctrine  which 
maintains  both  the  objectivity  of  time  and  the  relativity  of 
time.  To  avoid  the  ambiguity  which  the  words  "  objective," 
etc.,  have  in  such  connections,  we  will  take  the  liberty  of 
sometimes  substituting  for  it  such  other  terms,  as  "  trans- 
subjective,"  "  external,"  etc. 

The  conception  which  we  wish  now  to  examine  is  not  am- 
biguous ;  it  denies  that  the  duration  or  the  time-order  of  actual 
events  is  dependent  upon  the  duration  and  the  time-order  of 
the  individual  minds  which  perceive  or  conceive  of  the 
events ;  it  affirms  that  things  do  actually  come  into  existence, 
change  their  states  and  relations,  and  cease  to  be,  as  respects 
time-form,  as  well  as  respects  all  our  other  forms  of  knowing 
them.  Things  are  really  "  in  time  ; "  and  the  reason  why  we 
do  not  always  know  them  as  they  really  are,  —  do  not  per- 
ceive or  conceive  of  their  durations  and  arrangements  in  time 
in  such  a  manner  as  that  our  time-consciousness  is  an  accurate 
picture  of  these  transactions,  —  is  to  be  found  in  the  nature  of 
ourselves  and  in  the  character  of  our  relations  to  things.  That 
all  men's  ordinary  knowledge  and  all  their  scientific  formulas 
are  based  upon  some  such  assumption  as  this,  does  not  admit 
of  doubt.  Let  its  meaning  be  made  clearer  and  its  validity 
tested  by  throwing  it  into  a  form  of  illustration  such  as  has 
already  been  adopted.  Over  a  large  portion  of  the  earth  the 


TIME  191 

rising  and  the  setting  of  the  sun,  and  its  included  movement 
through  the  sky,  are  given  in  a  certain  time-order  to  millions 
of  human  beings.  The  objective  or  external  series  of  trans- 
actions is,  as  a  matter  of  acknowledged  fact,  mentally 
represented  in  as  many  millions  of  different  ways.  These 
differences  themselves  are  partly  resolvable  into  mental  dif- 
ferences, —  of  attention,  memory,  grasp  of  consciousness, 
etc.,  —  and  partly  into  more  important  differences  of  physical 
relations.  If  the  time-consciousness  of  any  three  persons, 
A,  j&,  and  (7,  who  have  repeatedly  regarded  this  object  from 
substantially  the  same  point  of  view,  does  not  accurately  cor- 
respond, the  reason  for  the  failure  is  said  to  be  found  in  some 
subjective  cause ;  —  the  cause  is  a  mental  fault  or  inefficiency 
peculiar  to  one  or  more  of  the  three.  If  all  three  had  been 
equally  attentive,  accurate  in  memory,  and  trustworthy  in 
description,  the  time-series  of  the  sun — S19  Sz,  JS&,  .  .  .  $n  — 
would  have  been  u  substantially  the  same  "  in  each  of  the 
three  streams  of  consciousness. 

Now  such  a  mode  of  conception  as  that  above  plainly  con- 
tains something  which  cannot  be  explained  as  wholly  due  to 
the  a  priori  character  of  the  time-consciousness  in  which  A, 
By  and  (?,  all  alike  share.  It  is  not  a  matter  which  can  be 
resolved  into  either  inherent  or  acquired  characteristics  of 
time-consciousness  alone.  For  two  similar  yet  differently 
located  mental  representations —  such  as  the  sun  that  rose  in 
the  morning  and  the  sun  just  setting,  or  Si  and  Sa  —  do  not 
necessarily  result  in  the  mental  representation  of  a  time  filled, 
and  a  space  passed,  by  one  and  the  same  real  object ;  they  do 
not  necessarily  so  result,  even  if  we  are  prepared  to  disregard 
the  fact  that  A,  B,  and  (7,  agree,  in  the  main,  in  their  time- 
series  of  representations.  The  morning  sun  can  easily  be 
made  to  "  appear  "  to  one  eye  on  the  horizon  and  to  the  other 
in  the  heavens  as  at  "  high  noon  ;  "  subjectively  regarded,  it  is 
just  as  conceivable  that  its  transit  might  be  in  the  reverse  of 
the  actual  direction ;  or  that  the  sun  might  hang  stationary  — 


192  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

as,  indeed,  it  apparently  does  for  a  considerable  time  in  the 
summer  of  the  highest  latitudes.  From  the  point  of  view  of 
the  time-concept  only,  8  might  move  from  its  point  of  rising 
to  its  point  of  setting,  without  appearing,  or  even  actually 
being,  at  different  points  between ;  thus,  the  object  now 
appears  at  r,  and  then  the  same  object  appears  at  s,  without 

any  intermediate  appearances  along  the  line  m  (r ™ s). 

It  is  only  the  nature  of  space  which  prevents  such  conceptions 
or  such  actual  events  as  this.  Nor  can  it  be  claimed  that  any 
particular  time-order  belongs,  of  necessity,  to  this  or  to  any 
other  natural  event,  merely  because  of  the  necessary  and 
a  priori  nature  of  time.  Now  it  is  just  this  particular  time- 
order  which  constitutes  the  essential  feature  of  the  knowledge 
that  the  sun  rose  this  morning  and  has  just  set ;  and  it  is  the 
agreement  of  a  number  of  subjective  time-series  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  same  trans-subjective  or  external  order 
which  constitutes  the  metaphysical  problem  offered  by  every 
such  experience  with  things.  In  other  words,  why  do  A,  B, 
and  (7,  find  their  time-consciousnesses  agreeing  in  the  mental 
representation  of  an  object,  which  all  alike  regard  as  not  them- 
selves, going  through  a  series  of  actual  changes  in  the  order 

#!,$,$    .    .    .    SJ 

But  now  we  are  reminded  that  of  the  millions  who  mentally 
represent  the  Sun  as  rising,  passing  across  the  sky,  and  setting 
on  its  other  side,  the  great  majority  by  no  means  accord  with 
the  time-series  of  A,  B,  and  0.  For  the  men  who  live  on  the 
hill-top  and  the  men  who  live  in  the  valley  the  actual  series 
of  changes,  S^  &,  SB  .  .  .  Sn,  is  different,  both  time-wise  and 
otherwise.  And  with  every  considerable  change  in  longitude 
and  latitude,  from  East  to  West  and  North  to  South  around 
the  entire  globe  the  same  thing  is  true.  But  to  explain  this 
our  acquired  knowledge  of  the  facts  emphasizes  the  influence 
of  the  trans-subjective  time-order  of  the  phenomena  and  not 
the  subjective  differences  in  the  different  streams  of  conscious- 
ness. The  causes  are  chiefly  resolved  into  changes  in  the 


TIME  193 

physical  points  of  view.  Thus  D,  E,  and  F,  are  required  on 
scientific  grounds,  if  they  will  represent  the  time-series  /Si,  8^ 
Ss  .  .  .  £n,  in  accordance  with  trans-subjective  facts,  to  agree 
with  one  another  but  to  differ  materially  from  the  mental  rep- 
resentations of  A,  By  and  C.  If  the  Arctic  explorer  were  to 
experience  the  same  subjective  series  as  that  experienced  by 
the  observer  from  the  equator,  one  (or  both)  of  them  would  be 
held  to  be  suffering  from  an  illusion.  The  actual  relation  of 
the  two  groups  (A,  B,  and  (7,  and  D,  E,  and  Fj)  to  S  absolutely 
requires  that  the  time-order  of  their  mental  representations 
of  8  shall  be  markedly  different.  And  here  the  important 
factor  in  the  differentiation  is  the  behavior  of  S —  regarded  as 
a  series  of  changes  that  are  trans-subjective  and  external  to 
both  groups  of  conscious  observers.  To  account  for  such 
experiences  by  alleging  the  subjective  character  of  time-con- 
sciousness is  rightly  regarded  by  the  man  of  common-sense 
and  by  the  man  of  science  as  entirely  unsatisfactory.  When 
Benvenuto  Cellini  saw  the  sun  in  the  midnight  darkness 
of  his  cell,  his  experience  may  be  referred  to  a  subjective 
ground.  But  when  A,  being  in  Rome  at  the  same  absolute 
time  with  Z>,  who  is  at  the  North  Cape,  fails  to  see  the  mid- 
night sun  which  the  latter  clearly  sees,  the  causes  for  this 
difference  are  to  be  found  in  the  different  objective  relations 
of  A  and  D  to  the  real  being  of  S. 

But  there  is  little  need  to  multiply  illustrations ;  although 
all  human  experience  could  be  drawn  upon,  if  need  were,  to 
furnish  illustrations.  For  human  cognition  cannot  take  place 
without  embodying,  in  its  very  structure,  the  trans-subjective 
application  of  the  category  of  Time.  What  has  particularly 
been  emphasized  by  the  just  previous  discussion  is  this  :  The 
fullest  possible  acknowledgment  of  the  relativity  of  all  time- 
consciousness ,  and  especially  of  all  mental  measurements  of 
time,  does  not  in  the  least  impair  men's  confidence  in  the  trans- 
subjective  applicability  of  the  concept  of  time.  For  this  relativ- 
ity of  time-consciousness  is  not  described  with  fidelity  to 

13 


194  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

our  common  experience  when  it  is  regarded  as,  essentially 
considered,  a  time-relation  between  mental  representations. 
This  relativity  is  itself  essentially  considered,  a  manifold  sys- 
tem of  actual  relations  between  each  Self  and  a  world  of  Things. 
To  convert  the  fact  that  the  time-consciousness  of  the  in- 
dividual is  a  subjective  affair,  the  conditions  of  which  lie 
partly  within  the  mental  constitution  of  the  individual,  into  a 
theory  that  the  entire  concept  of  time  has  only  a  subjective 
basis,  is  a  leap  in  argument  which  overcomes  all  the  difficul- 
ties only  by  disregarding  them. 

Nor  are  the  facts  of  experience  met  by  those  metaphysicians 
who  hold  that  the  basis  for  the  objectivity  of  time  lies  wholly 
in  that  common  mental  constitution  which  compels  men  to 
perceive,  and  conceive  of,  all  their  objects,  as  in  time.  For 
this  theory  settles  nothing  as  to  the  causes  in  particular  why 
men  agree,  within  certain  limits,  and  disagree  within  certain 
other  limits,  in  respect  of  the  duration  and  time-order  which 
all  individual  transactions  in  the  world  of  things  appear  to 
them  to  have.  Both  the  agreement  and  the  disagreement  are 
such  that  its  ground  must  be  partly  trans-subjective ;  the 
ground  must  lie,  that  is,  in  the  actual  time-series  which 
belongs  to  the  things  that  change.  Or,  to  state  the  same 
truth  in  more  concrete  terms  :  All  the  changing  states  and 
relations  of  the  object,  0,  are  given  to  me  in  a  certain  time- 
series  of  mental  images  which  are  mine  ;  and  which  are  my 
time-consciousness  as  determined  for  this  particular  case. 
The  moment  I  regard  this  series,  E^  J?2,  E9,  .  .  .  Un  (Ego^ 
Egoz,  etc.,)  as  communicable  to  you,  and  debatable  with  you, 
I  make  three  assumptions.  First,  I  assume  that  you  are 
going  through  with  another  series  of  mental  processes,  Ai9 
AZ,  AZ-,  .  .  .  An  ( Alteri,  Alter  ^  etc.),  which  is  essentially  like 
mine,  in  that  it  is  a  succession  of  psychoses  "  in  time  "  and, 
is  referable  to  the  same  object.  But,  second,  I  assume  that 
this  series  is  unlike  mine,  in  that  it  is  yours  and  you  are 
immediately  conscious  of  it.  And,  finally,  besides  these  dif- 


TIME  195 

ferences  which  are  due  to  subjective  causes,  your  time-con- 
sciousness is  assumed  to  be  differentiated  from  mine,  on 
account  of  the  different  relations  in  which  you  and  I  stand  to 
this  same  object.  Here,  then,  are  two  subjective  time-series, 
which  have  their  likenesses  and  their  differences  explained  by 
the  assumption  of  different  relations  in  which  the  two  subjects 
stand  to  the  same  series  of  changes  in  the  object-thing. 
That  is  to  say,  on  the  supposition  that  0  actually  goes 
through  the  time-series,  ft,  02,  Oz  .  .  .  0n,  I  pass  through  the 
time-series  E±,  Ez->  E^  .  .  .  En,  and  you  pass  through  the  time- 
series  AI,  A2,  A3  .  .  .  An ;  but  the  cause  for  El  etc.,  being 
unlike  AI,  etc.,  is  to  be  found  in  the  general  fact  of  the  two 
subjects  E  and  A  being  constantly  in  different  relations 
toward  the  trans-subjective  time-series,  ft,  ft,  03  .  .  .  On. 
The  assumptions  necessary  to  explain  any  common  agreement 
amongst  men  as  to  the  particular  character  of  a  world-order  of 
happenings  in  time  are  similar  to  those  considered  above ; 
but,  usually,  they  are  infinitely  more  complicated.  This  com- 
plication, moreover,  is  chiefly  created  on  the  side  of  things 
rather  than  on  the  side  of  selves.  To  be  sure,  there  are  no  two 
men,  the  subjective-conditions  of  whose  time-consciousness 
corresponds  in  all  particulars ;  but  so  far  as  the  metaphysi- 
cal treatment  of  the  category  of  time  is  concerned  such 
merely  subjective  particulars  may  be  disregarded.  The  gen- 
eral fact  of  substantial  agreement  in  the  essentials  of  time- 
consciousness  —  the  fact,  that  is,  that  all  men  perceive  and 
conceive  of  all  events,  psychical  and  physical,  as  happening  in 
time,  and  as  having  some  duration  and  place  in  an  objective 
time-series  —  is  explained  by  referring  it  to  the  constitution  of 
the  human  mind.  Time-form,  as  present,  past,  and  future,  is 
the  way  in  which  all  men  perceive  and  conceive  of  all  changes 
as  taking  place,  whether  in  themselves,  in  other  men,  or  in 
things.  But  the  complex  of  things  is  a  multifarious  and 
infinitely  complicated  system  of  happenings.  For  every 
"  now,"  regarded  as  covered  by  the  grasp  of  any  human  con- 


196  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

sciousness,  the  number  of  happenings  which  occur  within  this 
one  system— in  Nature  so-called  —  is  quite  incalculable. 
For  every  "  then  "  in  the  past,  whether  as  definitely  fixed  by 
memory  or  imagined  vaguely,  the  same  thing  was  true.  For 
every  "  then  "  in  the  future,  no  less  innumerable  will  be  the 
happenings  with  which  it  will  be  filled  when  it  has  become 
the  "  now  "  of  that  future  time.  The  world's  time  is  no  thin 
line  in  which  a  feeble  grasp  of  consciousness  brings  fitfully 
together  some  half-dozen  simple  elements  at  most,  and  thus 
imparts  to  them  that  unity  of  reality  which  things  have  when 
happening  for  me,  in  the  same  time.  But  considered  as  past, 
present,  or  future,  the  World's  time  is  no  whit  different  from 
my  time.  Its  "  now  "  is  the  same  as  my  "  now  "  —  considered 
time-wise.  And  for  the  world  to  have  been,  ten  thousand 
years  ago,  when  I  was  not,  is  no  different  as  respects  the 
world's  relation  to  time  from  that  in  which  I  am  now  stand- 
ing to  my  being  of  ten  years  ago. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  number  of  the  happenings,  and  the 
complexity  of  their  interrelations,  that  the  world's  time  differs 
from  the  time  in  which  every  individual's  stream  of  con- 
sciousness flows  on.  The  attempt  is  sometimes  made  to  re- 
present this  difference  by  increasing  the  breadth  of  the 
stream  of  time.  But  in  the  world-wide  series  of  events  it 
takes  no  more  of  a  "  now  "  for  ten  million  times  ten  million 
things  to  happen  than  it  takes  for  a  single  psychosis  in  the 
"  now  "  of  a  human  consciousness.  This  is  not  because  the 
World  does  not  change  in  time;  it  is  because  the  World 
can  do  so  much  more  than  you  and  I  can  do  in  a  given 
amount  of  time.  In  fact,  what  you  and  I  can  do  is  a  part  of 
the  world's  infinitude  of  events,  —  all  in  the  same  time. 
While  you  think,  I  dream :  and  then  while  I  study,  you  eat 
your  dinner ;  in  the  same  meanwhile,  hundreds  of  human 
beings  are  born  and  die ;  countless  myriads  of  microbes  and 
living  germs  begin  and  end  their  existence;  the  planetary 
system  and  all  the  heavenly  bodies  are  bowled  along 


TIME  197 

incalculably  complicated  courses  throughout  thousands  of 
miles  of  space ;  and  who  shall  make  a  beginning  of  even 
conceiving  what  an  infinity  of  changes  an  infinity  of  atoms 
are  going  through  ? 

Let  now  the  effort  be  made  faithfully  to  present  that  pic- 
ture of  the  trans-subjective  application  of  time  which  human 
science,  in  its  greatly  enlarged  knowledge  of  the  nature  and 
the  transactions  of  the  world  of  things,  considers  necessary 
to  its  very  life.  Note  well :  as  regards  the  meaning  of  the 
category  of  time,  and  its  applicability  to  things,  the  utmost 
refinements  of  science  differ  in  no  respect  from  the  coars- 
est notions  of  unreflective  common-sense.  The  speed  with 
which  some  of  the  cosmic  processes  go  on  is,  indeed,  such 
that  no  grasp  of  consciousness  is  quick  or  deft  enough  to 
represent  them  accurately.  On  the  other  hand,  the  stretches 
of  time  which  must  elapse  while  others  of  these  processes 
mature,  prove  equally  baffling  to  imagination  in  its  efforts 
to  present  the  infinite  extension  of  time.  But,  as  we  have 
already  said,  the  kind  of  time  in  which  science  sets  these 
processes  is  the  same  as  that  in  which  each  one's  own  little 
world  of  experience  is  set.  It  is  only  the  number  and  com- 
plication of  the  changes  in  states  and  relations  which  are 
taking  place  at  every  instant  that  distinguishes  the  World's 
time  from  the  time  of  the  plain  man's  consciousness.  In 
other  words,  "  to  be  in  time  "  is  one  and  the  same  thing  for  you 
and  for  me,  and  for  the  whole  system  of  realities. 

Now  this  infinity  of  simultaneous  transactions  may  fitly  be 
symbolized  in  the  following  way :  Let  oo  stand  for  the  world's 
happenings  —  all  of  them,  quoad  their  infinity.  At  no  time 
are  they  representable  by  a  mere  A,  B,  C,  .  .  .  N;  or  an  (a+b+ 
£+cT)+(£>+H-c?+e),  etc.;  as  though  you  and  I,  and  all  the  men 
of  lofty  imagination  and  scientific  training  could,  by  any 
combination  of  mental  effort,  at  a  single  instant,  picture  them 
completely.  Suppose,  for  example,  an  agreement  were  made 
amongst  all  the  savants  and  philosophers  of  earth's  millions 


198  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

that,  at  a  given  instant  of  absolute  time,  each  one  should 
perform  an  appointed  task  of  mentally  representing  a  certain 
number  of  the  world's  transactions  at  that  instant ;  would  the 
results,  when  compounded,  give  a  full  and  accurate  picture  of 
the  world's  then  present  transactions  ?  Not  better  than  the 
analysis  of  a  single  salt  drop  would  enable  us  to  comprehend 
the  tides,  and  storms,  and  monsters  strange  and  terrible, 
that  make  up  the  reality  of  the  ocean  !  It  is  no  thin  strip  of 
actuality,  no  cross-section  of  a  cylinder  infinite  in  length,  but 
measurable  in  diameter  by  standards  of  human  imagination 
and  intellection,  of  which  we  are  speaking  now. 

Time^wise,  however,  the  life  of  the  world  is,  according  to 
the  conceptions  of  science,  as  easily  representable  within  any 
given  area,  as  is  the  life  of  any  one  of  us.  It  is  in  reality  a 
succession  which  may  be  symbolized  by  oo  i,  oo  2,  oo  3,  .  .  . 
oon.  But  no  oo  2  is  to  be  conceived  of  as  separate  from  its  an- 
tecedent oo !,  or  its  sequent  oo  3 ;  —  whether  as  respects  the  na- 
ture of  its  total  content,  or  by  the  interposition  of  a  barrier  of 
empty  time  between  the  two.  For  this  actual  world  of  ours 
cannot  be  known  as  created  wholly  anew  at  every  instant  of 
its  existence  in  time.  And  this  conviction  of  enduring 
existences,  and  of  real  causal  connections  which  constitute 
an  infinity  of  bonds  between  each  oo  in  the  series,  leads  the 
thought  backward  to  the  categories  which  have  already  been 
examined.  It  also  involves  conceptions  which  still  await 
examination,  —  such  as  those  of  the  world's  Unity,  and  of  the 
influence  of  common  forms  and  forces  acting  under  unchang- 
ing laws.  Although  time  is  necessary  for  all  these  aspects 
of  the  world's  life,  the  reality  of  time  is  no  sufficient  expla- 
nation of  them.  Of  course,  also,  any  thought  of  interpolating 
some  fraction  of  empty  time  between  the  successive  members 
of  the  series,  oo  l  .  .  .  oo  n,  is  a  violation  of  the  very  assump- 
tion with  which  the  mind  starts,  and  under  which  it  con- 
structs this  picture  of  such  a  series.  The  world's  time  is 
never  an  empty  framework  in  which  hypothetical  transactions 


TIME  199 

might  conceivably  take  place.  It  is  nothing  but  this  continuous 
succession  of  an  infinity  of  interrelated  changes  —  the  flow  "  in 
time  "  of  the  infinitely  rich  content  of  the  Being  of  the  World. 
The  arrogance  of  subjectivism  can  reach  no  more  transcend- 
ent height  than  to  suppose  that  the  actuality  of  the  world's 
time  is  in  the  least  degree  affected  in  character  by  what 
men  think  or  imagine  about  it. 

For,  on  this  last  point,  it  is  at  once  evident  that  human 
time-consciousness  is  itself  only  one  little,  fitful,  and  fragment- 
ary series  of  happenings  in  the  time-series  of  the  Being  of  the 
World.  The  total  series  represented  by  oo  i,  oo  2,  oo  3  .  .  .  oo  n 
includes  the  series  which  is  the  so-called  "  stream  of  con- 
sciousness "  I  know  as  my  Self.  And  it  is  equally  kind  and 
ready  to  afford  its  fostering  embrace,  with  you  and  with  all 
other  streams  of  consciousness.  To  recur,  then,  to  the  illus- 
tration already  employed:  suppose  that  on  account  of  com- 
plicated differences  in  relations,  the  trans-subjective  series 
0i,  0a,  08  .  .  .  0n  (Object),  is  mentally  represented  by  me 
as  a  series  E^  E^  Es  .  .  .  En  (Ego),  and  is,  in  a  different 
way  mentally  represented  by  you  as  the  series,  A^  A^  As  .  .  . 
An  (Alter) ;  then  all  the  series  gone  through  by  0  and  E  and 
A^  and  all  the  intermediate  series  in  which  the  "  complicated 
differences  of  relations  "  amongst  these  three  beings  consist, 
are  alike  included  in  the  series  oo  1?  oo  2,  oo  8  .  .  .  oo  n.  In- 
deed, the  time  in  which  the  actual  transactions  of  the  object 
take  place,  and  in  which  your  and  my  mental  representations 
of  its  transactions  take  place,  is  alike  the  world's  time.  Our 
mental  representations  add  nothing  to  and  take  nothing  away 
from  the  character  of  this  time  ;  their  existence  or  their 
cessation  can  only  serve  to  increase  or  diminish  the  richness 
of  the  known  content  of  the  world's  Being  "  in  time." 

In  some  such  way  as  the  foregoing  must  a  system  of  meta- 
physics which  is  true  to  the  facts  of  cognitive  consciousness 
validate  that  knowledge  of  selves  and  of  things  upon  which 
the  plain  man's  convictions  and  the  scientific  assumptions 


200  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

of  all  ages  insist,  as  respects  the  application  of  the  category 
of  time  to  reality.  Rightly  understood,  only  this  conception 
gives  an  ontology  which  is  to  be  accepted  and  defended 
against  all  the  attacks  of  philosophical  scepticism  and  of 
theological  dogmatism  or  mysticism.  For  both  the  extreme 
of  scepticism  and  the  extreme  of  mysticism,  in  their  denial 
of  an  actual  trans-subjective  time-series  "  in  which "  all 
Reality  exists,  cut  away  at  the  roots  the  entire  growth  of 
man's  cognitive  experience.  Realities  that  are  not  "  in  time  " 
are  not  knowable  or  conceivable,  are  in  no  way  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  non-realities.  A  System  of  Reality,  a  real 
World  or  Cosmos,  that  is  not  existent  "  in  time "  is  not 
knowable  or  conceivable :  for  the  many  beings  whose  changes 
of  state  and  relation,  as  they  fall  under  universal  laws  and 
ideal  forms,  constitute  the  system,  must  be  united  both  for 
thought  and  for  existence  in  actual  reciprocity  under  the 
category  of  time. 

Doubly  futile  is  the  effort  to  discover  a  history  or  any 
principles  of  development  belonging  to  a  World  that  does  not 
actually  exist  in  time.  That  conception  which  dominates 
all  modern  science  and  in  its  false  and  mistaken  as  well  as  in 
its  true  and  well-taken  applications,  throws  floods  of  light 
upon  our  intellectual  treatment  of  the  facts  of  experience  — 
the  conception  of  "  Evolution"  —is  emptied  of  all  significance 
when  separated  from  the  category  of  time.  The  human  mind 
can  maintain  no  valid  cognition  of  reality  —  no  cognition  at 
all  in  any  fit  meaning  of  this  word  —  without  maintaining 
the  trans-subjective  applicability  of  the  time-concept. 

"  But  if  twenty  millions  of  summers  are  stored  in  the  sunlight  still, 
We  are  far  from  the  noon  of  man,  there  is  time  for  the  race  to  grow." 

Without  taking  this  concept  in  good  faith  we  cannot  even 
believe  in  our  own  reality ;  much  less  can  we  ground  this 
reality  in  any  world  that  is  external  to  the  individual's 
"  stream  of  consciousness."  Nay :  this  very  stream  is  not 


TIME  201 

to  be  called  "stream,"  or  "line,"  "or  "life,"  or  "growth," 
is  not  to  be  treated  genetically  or  examined  scientifically, 
without  self-consciousness,  memory,  imagination,  reasoning, 
etc. ;  and  all  these  psychical  processes,  or  aspects  of  the 
conscious  mind,  implicate  the  incontestable  validity  of  the 
time-concept.  This  is  as  true  of  Rip  Yan  Winkle,  when 
awakening  from  his  long  and  dreamless  sleep,  as  it  is  of  the 
astronomer  when  eagerly  watching  a  transit  of  Yenus.  In 
every  conception  of  the  Self  the  applicability  of  the  category 
of  time  to  a  reality  that  is  not  wholly  measured  by  the  pres- 
ent existence  of  the  conceiving  activity  is  implicate  in  an 
inextricable  manner. 

From  this  main  position,  which,  on  the  one  hand,  admits 
the  relativity  of  all  human  time-consciousness  and,  on  the 
other,  maintains  the  actuality  of  a  time-series  as  belonging  to 
the  life  of  the  World,  we  are  not  to  be  driven  by  any  form  of 
mysticism,  —  no  matter  on  what  abstractions  or  negations 
this  mysticism  may  be  founded.  Relativity  is  no  more  incom- 
patible with  Reality  than  are  Time  and  Space.  Relation,  and 
Time  and  Space,  are  all  forms  of  cognition  of  so  fundamental 
a  character  as  to  lay  valid  claim  to  have  their  ground  in  the 
very  nature  of  reality.  And  "to  be  in  time"  is  no  more 
mysterious  for  the  entire  World  of  Eeality  than  it  is  for  that 
little  fragment  of  reality  we  call  ourselves.  For,  strictly 
speaking,  discussions  about  the  "  unendingness "  of  time, 
the  possibility  of  conceiving  of  an  absolute  beginning  in 
time,  the  "  eternal  now  J>  of  the  divine  Mind,  etc.,  have  noth- 
ing to  do  either  with  the  nature  or  with  the  validity  of  this 
category.  Everybody  knows  perfectly  well  what  it  is  for  the 
Self  to  be  "  in  time,"  and  equally  well  for  the  entire  World 
of  Being  to  be  in  time,  quite  irrespective  of  any  negative  or 
positive  position  in  answer  to  these  mooted  questions.  Un- 
doubtedly, it  has  been  the  frequent  practice  of  metaphysics 
and  of  theology  to  juggle  with  the  time-concept,  whenever 
the  proposal  is  made  to  extend  its  application  to  the  Infinite, 


202  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

the  Absolute,  etc.  But  the  lesson  to  be  drawn  from  both  the 
successes  and  the  failures  of  all  these  dialectical  efforts  is  not  at 
all  that  which  is  consecrated  by  the  Kantian  "  Critique."  Their 
legitimate  result  is  not  the  affirmation  of  the  transcendental 
ideality,  or  the  negation  of  the  trans-subjective  reality  of  the 
time-concept.  It  may  very  well  enough  be  a  lesson  as  to  the 
impossibility  of  conceiving  of  the  Infinite  (or  the  Absolute) 
by  a  process  of  prolonging  in  time,  or  of  heaping  up  in  the 
"now"  of  a  single  grasp  of  consciousness,  a  monstrous  num- 
ber of  otherwise  disparate  mental  images.  But  such  discus- 
sions have  no  bearing  upon  the  nature  and  validity  of  the 
time-concept. 

It  will  be  of  some  help,  however,  in  promoting  a  general 
theory  of  this  category,  to  consider  briefly  certain  difficulties 
—  such  as  those  mentioned  above  —  into  which  the  mind  is 
plunged  by  a  metaphysics  that  disregards  the  facts  of  cog- 
nitive experience  and  deals  chiefly  with  abstractions.  For 
example,  the  conception  of  "  infinite  "  —  meaning  by  this,  un- 
ending —  time,  is,  so  far  as  such  a  conception  has  any  bear- 
ing on  a  theory  of  reality,  intelligible  both  as  a  positive  and 
a  negative  conception.  That  is  to  say,  it  is  positively  a  con- 
ception corresponding  perfectly  to  the  conception  of  any  par- 
ticular finite  time ;  any  portion  of  infinite  time  is  measurable 
and  comparable  with  other  times,  is  perpetually  divisible  into 
present,  past,  and  future,  and  is  capable  of  being  "filled" 
with  events  occurring  in  a  series  and  enduring  through 
a  longer  or  shorter  amount  of  time.  These  are  the  "  marks  " 
which  the  mind  necessarily  employs  in  its  effort  to  frame 
even  the  most  empty  and  abstract  picture  of  time.  In  the 
actual  constructive  processes  which  are  responsible  for  this 
picture,  we  are  conscious  of  ourselves  passing  through  a  cer- 
tain series  of  states  that  are  representative  of  the  processes 
which  would  go  on  in  this  infinite  extension  of  the  world's 
time.  Thus  this  "world's  time"  is,  both  subjectively  and 
trans-sub jectively  considered,  no  whit  altered  in  its  make-up, 


TIME  203 

because  the  mind  is  trying  to  conceive  of  it  as  unending. 
But  the  qualification  of  being  infinite,  or  unending,  is  rep- 
resentable  only  in  negative  fashion.  Infinite  and  unend- 
ing time  is  not  to  be  thought  of  as  measured  or  definitely 
compared,  for  quantity,  with  any  of  the  particular  times  of 
our  experience  with  realities  :  its  present  is,  indeed,  always  the 
movable  and  content-full  "  now  "  which  forms  the  mind's  only 
possible  conception  of  present  time ;  but  its  past  and  its 
future  are  not  to  be  conceived  of  as  finished ;  and,  although 
not  a  moment  of  it  can  be  imagined  as  unfilled  with  the 
being  of  the  World,  it  is  not  to  be  imagined  as  ever  all 
filled  by  a  possible  multiplication  in  the  extension,  time- 
wise,  of  the  world's  transactions.  In  a  word,  quoad  time, 
infinite  or  unending  time  is,  positively  considered,  just  like 
any  other  time  ;  but  its  infiniteness  or  unendingness  negates 
every  effort  of  the  mind  to  conceive  it  as  limited  or  ended. 
The  conception  answering  to  the  noun  is  positive ;  the  con- 
ception which  aims  to  answer  the  adjective  results  only  in 
negation.  But  this  is  equally  true  of  every  combination 
which  can  be  made  between  all  manner  of  nouns  and  adjec- 
tives like  the  adjectives  "  mfinite  "  and  "  unending." 

Not  more  serious  are  objections  against  the  trans-subjec- 
tive application  of  the  time-concept  which  take  the  form  of 
maintaining  the  impossibility  of  conceiving  an  absolute  begin- 
ning in  time.  Even  the  argument  of  the  profound  Kant  in 
his  "  First  Conflict  of  the  Transcendental  Ideas "  scarcely 
deserves  to  be  considered  as  a  serious  objection.1  "  In  an 
empty  time,"  says  this  philosopher,  "  it  is  impossible  that  any 
thing  should  take  its  beginning,  because  of  such  a  time  no 
part  possesses  any  condition  as  to  existence  rather  than  non- 
existence,  which  condition  could  distinguish  that  part  from 
any  other  (whether  produced  by  itself  or  through  another 

1  See  the  "Critique  of  Pure  Reason,"  Miiller's  translation,  p.  345,  and  compare 
remarks  on  this  "Antinomy"  in  Adickes,  and  in  the  author's  "Philosophy  of 
Knowledge,"  pp.  412  f. 


204  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

cause).  Hence,  though  many  a  series  of  things  may  take  its 
beginning  in  the  world,  the  world  itself  can  have  no  begin- 
ning, and  in  reference  to  time  past  is  infinite."  Now  this 
argument,  so  far  as  it  has  any  cogency  whatever,  tends  only 
to  show  the  impossibility  of  mentally  picturing  an  "  absolute 
beginning"  of  the  entire  complex  of  world-happenings  —  an 
oo  2,  which  has  been  preceded  by  no  GO  1?  with  which  it  may 
be  compared  as  sequent  in  time  and  dependent  upon  it  as 
upon  its  Ground.  That  "  in  the  world  "  many  series  of  hap- 
penings may  take  their  rise,  Kant  is  careful  to  admit ;  for 
the  denial  of  this  would  involve  the  denial  of  the  a  priori 
nature  of  the  time-concept.  All  such  beginnings,  however, 
are  relative,  both  to  the  mind  of  the  knower  and  also  to 
one  another  in  the  unending  world-process. 

But,  in  fact,  the  limitation  of  our  ability  to  conceive  of  a 
world  as  springing  into  being  at  any  instant,  which  instant 
could  then  be  marked  off  as  the  absolute  "  beginning  of 
time,"  is  twofold  in  character.  And  the  Kantian  statement 
of  this  alleged  antinomy,  confuses  the  two  and  misapplies 
both.  For  by  the  very  term  "  World "  must  be  understood 
a  time-series  of  events,  already  inaugurated  according  to  some 
definite  ideas  of  form  and  order  and  final  purposes,  —  an 
actual  system  of  beings  already  interacting  in  time.  Cer- 
tainly such  a  system  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  really 
springing  out  of  nothing.  As  an  idea  or  series  of  mental 
representations,  it  is  the  product  of  man's  active  imagina- 
tion and  intellect  functioning  in  time.  And  as  actual,  it 
must  be  regarded  as  the  product  of  some  cause  or  system 
of  causes,  in  order  that  it  may  originate  at  all.  Granted  the 
hypothesis  of  such  a  cause  —  we  will  say,  for  the  sake  of  the 
argument,  of  the  will  and  reason  of  God  the  Creator  —  and 
the  category  of  time,  as  such,  opposes  no  objection  whatever 
to  the  world's  time-series  having  an  actual  beginning.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  I  may  think  of  the  beginning  of  the  world  as  a 
"moment"  in  the  Life  of  the  Everlasting  World-Ground,. 


TIME  205 

then  there  is  no  longer  any  insuperable  objection  to  my 
conceiving  of  this  world  as  having  a  beginning  "  in  time." 
For  now,  the  time  in  which  the  world's  time  begins  is  some 
particular  time  in  the  Life  of  that  World-Ground,  whom 
faith  knows  as  God  the  Creator.  Permission  thus  to  think 
of  the  world  and  of  the  World-Ground  can  neither  be  given 
nor  denied  in  the  name  of  the  category  of  time  alone.  But 
the  whole  problem  as  to  a  "  beginning  in  time  "  is  raised  to  be 
considered  anew,  upon  far  higher  and  obscurer  grounds. 
Let  it  be  remembered,  however,  that  in  this  way  the  trans- 
subjective  reality  of  the  category  of  time  is  not  in  the  least 
degree  impaired  or  altered ;  but  the  point  of  its  application  is 
transferred  from  a  world-process  that  is  conceived  of  as 
beginning  in  time  to  the  life  of  a  Self  that  is,  indeed,  in 
time,  without  having  any  beginning  in  time.  In  this  way 
both  the  confidence  with  which  the  time-concept  is  satisfied, 
and  the  inability  to  make  this  concept  wholly  void,  may  be 
regarded  as  affording  proof  for  the  metaphysical  position  we 
are  defending.  In  other  words,  if  I  regard  the  world's  time 
as  a  mere  series  of  happenings  in  things,  I  may  picture  to 
myself  the  beginning  of  this  series  in  time.  But  if  I  regard 
the  nature  of  the  ultimate  World-Ground,  I  find  that  It 
cannot  be  conceived  of  as  having  a  beginning  in  time.  In 
neither  case,  however,  can  the  trans-subjective  application 
of  the  time-concept  be  voided.  And  this  double  fact,  which 
is  a  fact  both  of  positive  conviction  and  also  of  impotency, 
requires  the  view  that  Time  is  a  necessary  form  of  Reality. 

It  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  dwell  long  over  that  mysticism  of 
theology  which  thinks  to  exalt  man's  conceptions  or  minister 
to  his  practical  religious  needs  by  speaking  of  the  divine 
consciousness  as  an  «  eternal  now."  Understood  as  a  legiti- 
mate but  figurative  representation,  it  is,  so  far  as  the  charac- 
ter of  the  time-concept  is  concerned,  just  as  true  of  man  as 
it  is  of  God.  With  every  time-consciousness  it  is,  of  course, 
always  now.  This  is  the  truth  —  already  referred  to  —  which 


206  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Lotze  and  others  have  rather  unhappily  expressed  by  speak- 
ing of  the  present  time  as  alone  having  reality ;  for  the  past 
has  been,  the  future  will  be ;  and  neither  past  nor  future  truly 
is.  But  when  the  attempt  is  made  to  understand  this  phrase 
as  a  denial  that  the  Being  of  God  is  "  in  time,"  with  a  view 
to  save  the  Absolute  from  the  limitations  of  time,  then  such 
a  compound  phrase  as  the  "  eternal  now  "  represents  one  of  the 
cheapest  and  most  ineffectual  forms  of  mysticism.  No  meta- 
physical theory  can  afford  to  disregard  the  claims  of  mystic- 
ism ;  but  what  we  object  to  is  a  mysticism  that  contents  itself 
with  compounding  phrases  out  of  irreconcilable  and  contradic- 
tory elements.  Let  the  truth  be  acknowledged  frankly :  If 
God  does  not  exist  in  time,  then  man  can  never  know  Him, — 
that  He  is,  nor  what  He  is,  nor  anything  about  Him.  Nor 
can  any  effort  of  intellect  or  imagination  make  "  existence 
in  time  "  mean  anything  essentially  different,  quoad  time,  for 
God,  from  what  it  means  for  man.  But,  here  again,  the  ques- 
tion whether  existence  in  time  is  conceivable  for  a  being  that 
is  entitled  to  be  called  "  Absolute "  enlarges  our  theoretical 
difficulties  and  lifts  them  all  upon  decidedly  higher  and 
broader  grounds.  For  the  critical  survey  and  mastery  of 
these  grounds,  we  do  not  in  the  least  smooth  our  path  by 
introducing  a  vague  mysticism  into  the  discussion  of  the 
category  of  time. 

And  now  the  way  has  been  opened  to  that  provisional 
answer  to  the  problem  of  this  chapter  which  will,  we  believe, 
best  serve  a  harmonious  and  satisfying  system  of  metaphysics. 
The  problem,  it  will  be  remembered  is  this :  The  "  being  in 
time,"  which  we  and  all  other  selves  and  all  things  have,  can- 
not itself  be  wholly  due  to  the  constitution  of  the  individual's 
time-consciousness.  This  time-consciousness,  although  rela- 
tive to  each  individual  mind's  peculiar  constitution  and  devel- 
opment, is  also,  in  all  its  essential  characteristics,  common  to 
all  human  minds.  Otherwise  no  human  life  or  human  devel- 
opment, no  science,  or  social  intercourse,  or  moral  character, 


TIME  207 

could  exist.  Moreover,  the  very  nature  of  knowledge  forbids 
that  the  ground  of  this  common  human  time-consciousness 
should  be  found  wholly  in  the  subjective  structure  of  the  race. 
The  world  of  non-human  things,  not  only  is  known  as  in 
time,  but  it  actually  is  in  time ;  that  is  to  say,  a  trans-sub- 
jective series  of  happenings  —  infinite  in  content  at  every 
moment  of  time  —  is  presupposed  in  all  man's  cognitive 
experience.  Our  individual  times,  and  the  times  of  the  race, 
are  included  in  the  world's  time.  And  that  very  principle  of 
relativity,  which  is  often  urged  in  favor  of  the  pure  subject- 
ivity of  time,  is  itself  an  indisputable  evidence  of  its  trans-sub- 
jective applicability.  The  system  of  reality  actually  is  a 
time-series  which,  although  its  content  at  each  "  now "  of 
its  existence,  may  be  symbolized  by  oo  ,  must,  as  a  series,  be 
symbolized  by  such  an  objective  arrangement  of  its  content  as 
oo  i,  oo  2,  QO  3,  etc.,  —  through  unending  time  (  oo  n).  Or,  if  we 
feel  impelled,  for  valid  reasons,  to  distinguish  between  that 
all-inclusive  system  of  reality  we  call  the  "  world,"  and  the 
so-called  "  World-Ground,"  we  can  only  substitute  a  similar 
form  of  conception  for  the  unending  Life  of  this  World-Ground. 
God's  Being  then  becomes  an  unending  time-series,  every 
"  now  "  of  which  is  infinitely  rich  in  content.  But  all  this 
brings  again  before  us  the  final  question  which  arises  in  the 
discussion  of  this  metaphysical  problem  :  What  sort  of  a  Being 
must  the  World  have  in  order  that  it  may  satisfy  the  conditions 
imposed  upon  it  by  this  category  of  Time  f 

There  are  two  important  but  subordinate  classes  of  ques- 
tions which  are  customarily  employed  to  complicate  the 
answer  given  to  the  metaphysical  problem  just  proposed. 
These  questions  concern,  first,  the  propriety  of  any  distinction 
between  the  world,  as  a  total  system  of  realities,  and  the 
World-Ground ;  and  further,  the  manner  in  which  this  dis- 
tinction is  to  be  made  (natura  naturata  and  natura  naturans  ; 
the  world  and  God,  etc.).  The  second  class  of  questions  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  relations  in  which  the  two  beings  thus 


208  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

distinguished  must  be  supposed  to  stand  to  each  other  (Creator 
and  created ;  The  One  and  its  multiform  "  differentiations  "  ; 
God  and  the  world  as  his  "  manifestation"  or  "  revelation"). 
Now  we  wish  for  the  present  as  much  as  possible  without 
prejudicing  a  future  consideration  of  such  questions  to  put 
them  all  on  one  side.  Whether  we  distinguish,  as  belong- 
ing to  one  sphere  of  reality,  between  God  and  the  world,  or 
distinguish  them  not,  and  however  we  picture  the  relation 
between  the  two  spheres  distinguished,  our  present  problem 
is  unchanged.  What  nature  must  Reality  have  in  accordance 
with  the  inescapable  conditions  of  human  time-consciousness  ? 
To  this  question  only  one  answer  seems  possible,  or  even  intel- 
ligible :  The  nature  of  reality  must  be  that  of  an  absolute  Self. 
Really  to  be  "  in  time  "  is  to  exist  as  a  Self  knows  itself  to 
exist.  Really  to  be  in  the  all-inclusive  world's  time  is  to  be 
an  infinite  and  absolute  Life  like  that,  time-wise,  which  every 
self  knows  itself  to  be.  Only  with  this  hypothesis  can  those 
two  aspects  of  the  time  problem  which  are  ever  before  the 
metaphysician  be  treated  in  a  reconciling  way.  These  are  the 
reality  of  time  as  a  constitutional  form  of  the  functioning  of 
the  knower,  of  the  cognitive  self ;  and  the  reality  of  time  as  a 
trans-subjective  series  inclusive  of  all  events,  both  of  those  in 
the  consciousness  of  the  knower  and  of  those  in  the  world  of 
external  things.  These  two  aspects  —  the  subjective  and  the 
trans-subjective — are  completely  reconciled  only  by  that 
theory  of  reality  which  regards  all  concrete  existences  as  hav- 
ing their  time- series  in  the  unending  Life  of  a  Self.  No  other 
theory,  therefore,  unites  the  subjective  series  and  the,  to  us, 
trans-subjective  series,  in  the  Unity  of  one  World  existent  in 
time. 

To  accept  that  mechanical  and  external  view  which  regards 
the  happenings  of  so-called  nature  as  stamping  themselves 
"  time-wise,"  in  a  blurred  fashion,  upon  the  sensitive  paper  of 
the  human  mind,  is  to  contradict  all  the  testimony  of  psy- 
chology, and  to  subvert  all  the  analysis  of  philosophy,  with 


TIME  209 

respect  to  the  genesis  and  development  of  man's  consciousness 
of  time.  Such  realism  is  shattered  into  fragments  by  a  few 
sturdy  blows  from  the  critical  student  of  this  category.  But 
to  regard  the  genesis  and  development  of  time-consciousness 
as  purely  subjective,  as  an  affair  of  the  constitution  and 
activity  of  the  human  mind  alone,  is  to  render  knowledge 
impossible,  and  to  separate  man  from  the  world  of  things. 
It  is  to  render  science  a  dream  constructed  out  of  a  possible 
series  of  imaginary  happenings  rather  than  a  progressive 
study  of  the  truth  of  the  world's  history.  Such  idealism  is 
evaporated  by  the  heat  of  our  fierce  workaday  sun,  and  by  the 
added  heat  of  its  own  friction  with  the  ethical  and  religious 
interests  of  life. 

In  illustration  and  further  proof  of  the  view  we  are  advocat- 
ing let  it  be  considered  what  the  mind  is  doing  when  it  pictures 
the  events  of  the  whole  world  of  beings  as  actually  happening 
in  one  and  the  same  time-series.  The  mind  is  doing  simply 
this :  it  is  trying  to  take  the  interior  point  of  view  held  by 
the  world's  time-consciousness.  But  what  really  is  this  point 
of  view  ?  It  is  the  point  of  view  which  would  be  held  by  the 
mind,  if  its  limited  grasp  of  consciousness  were  only  adequate 
to  include  all  the  happenings  that  go  on  in  the  world's  time. 
It  is  the  point  of  view  of  a  being  that  has  a  time-conscious- 
ness like  our  own,  yet  infinitely  greater  and  profounder  in  its 
grasp.  This  is  what  would  be  seen  from  its  point  of  view,  if 
all  these  happenings  were  brought  within  the  grasp  of  an 
infinite  and  all-inclusive  consciousness.  The  "  now  "  that  is, 
the  "  then-that-was,"  and  the  "  then-which-will-be,"  have  no 
reality,  and  never  can  get  any  reality,  as  applied  to  the  entire 
system  of  happenings,  unless  some  conscious  Self  be  conceived 
of  as  functioning  under  the  category  of  time.  Our  conception 
of  absolute  and  universal  time  is  man's  best,  yet  feeble  and  in- 
adequate representation  of  the  Divine  time-consciousness. 

In  vain  does  the  mind  strive  to  rid  itself  of  the  demand  to 
conceive  of  the  existence  of  the  world  in  time,  under  the  form 

14 


210  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

of  a  Life  of  other  conscious  Mind,  functioning  after  the 
analogy  of  its  own  life.  The  student  of  biological  evolution 
draws  an  enticing  picture  of  a  vast  and  indefinitely  extended 
world-process  which  antedated  the  existence  of  any  form  of 
sentient  life.  He  aims  to  tell  you  what  was  "  then  "  so  many 
myriads  of  millions  of  years  ago.  But  surely  this  little  stream 
of  consciousness  does  not  claim  to  contain  all  this  as  content 
of  memory.  The  biologist  is  only  making  a  fairly  plausible 
but  wofully  fragmentary  picture  of  what  there  was  then  to 
know,  if  some  knower  had  been  upon  the  scene.  His  finite 
act  of  imagination  in  the  "  now  "  of  his  little  consciousness, 
gives  the  needed  unity  of  an  imagined  past  time  to  the 
imagined  elements.  But  what  was  necessary  in  order  to 
make  really  existent  u  in  time  "  the  world  that  "  then  "  was  ? 
For  time  is  no  force,  external  to  things  or  immanent  in  things, 
which  binds  them  into  a  unity.  Only  a  conscious  self,  now 
existent,  can  create  the  actual  "  now  "  which  brings  many 
things  into  the  unity  of  one  time.  Only  a  conscious  Self, 
then  existent,  could  have  done  the  same  service  for  things  at 
any  moment  of  that  past  time.  That  which  we  do  so  fit- 
fully and  imperfectly  for  a  fragment  of  the  world's  events, 
the  World  must  somehow  do  perfectly  and  constantly  for  it- 
self, if  it  is  going  to  be  known  as  existent  "  now  "  in  time. 
AncLwhat  is  true  of  the  ever-changing  present,  is  true  of  the 
past,  and  of  the  future,  of  the  world's  stream  of  events.  We 
can  conceive  of  them  as  in  time  now  past,  only  as  we  imagine 
them  to  be  remembered  by  some  possible  mind.  Time  past, 
actual  and  not  imaginary,  is  representable  by  us  only  in 
terms  of  memory.  All  these  happenings  in  the  world,  which 
neither  we  nor  other  men  have  known  or  can  know,  are 
conceived  of  as  possible  objects  of  memory  for  the  Absolute 
Self.  The  only  reality  which  the  world's  past  time  can  have 
must  be  found  in  the  truth  that  the  World  somehow  remem- 
bers itself. 

But  it  is  not  hard  to  conjecture  what  thoughts  are  passing 


TIME  211 

through  the  minds  of  readers  unwilling  to  agree  with  our 
reconciling  theory.  You  are  talking,  say  they,  about  the 
characteristics  of  that  time  in  which  the  world's  events  must 
be  known,  if  known  at  all ;  you  are  forgetting  that  meta- 
physics deals  only  with  reality,  and  that  the  metaphysics 
of  time  discusses  the  question,  What  is  it  actually  to  be  in 
time  ?  Why  may  not  much,  nay  almost  all,  of  the  world's 
happenings  never  have  been  known ;  and  yet  they  may  have 
happened  all  the  same  ;  and  that  "  in  time  "  ?  To  be  known  in 
time,  and  really  "  to  be  in  time,"  are  surely  not  one  and  the 
same  thing.  But  here  again  is  that  foolish  and  inconsiderate 
kind  of  realism  which  forgets  that  every  form  of  time- 
present,  past,  and  future  —  is  actually  a  form  of  conscious 
mental  life ;  and  that  without  such  mental  life,  all  the  words 
and  concepts  employed  to  describe  time-consciousness  are 
absolutely  devoid  of  meaning.  If  one  does  not  mean  anything 
conceivable  when  one  speaks  of  "  time  "  as  actually  applicable 
to  the  world  of  realities,  one  might  as  well  inquire  what  it  is 
to  be  really  "  in  abracadabra  "  as  really  to  be  "  in  time." 

Notice,  then,  that  all  the  phrases  which  popular  usage,  or 
scientific  theory,  or  transcendental  metaphysics  employs  virtu- 
ally consider  objective  time  after  the  analogy  of  the  life  of  a  Self. 
By  them  all,  time  is  regarded  as  somehow  real ;  and  yet  not 
as  a  real  thing.  It  is  vaguely  thought  of  as  a  "  medium"  of 
things ;  but  the  actuality  of  it  as  a  "  medium  "  is  conceivable 
only  as  an  actual  succession  of  conscious  states.  To  bring 
into  existence  the  unow,"  that  is  for  me,  I  must  grasp 
together  into  the  unity  of  consciousness,  the  otherwise  dis- 
parate "  momenta "  of  my  own  life ;  then  I  actually  am 
u  now,"  and  my  object  has  an  actual  present  existence  for  me. 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  "  now  "  that  is  for  you.  How 
a  universal  "  now  "  can  come  into  existence,  an  absolute  time 
that  gives  the  time-consciousness  to  all  finite  selves  according 
to  the  relations  in  which  they,  respectively,  stand  to  it,  —  this 
is  a  problem  which  admits  of  no  other  solution  than  the  one 


212  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

we  have  proposed ;  such  a  "  now "  must  be  the  construct  of 
the  active  consciousness  of  an  Absolute  Self.  And  the  com- 
plete application  of  this  category  to  all  the  conceivable  objects 
that  make  up  the  present  complex  of  the  world's  being  can  be 
secured  only  if  the  grasp  of  this  time-consciousness  includes 
all  these  objects  within  itself.  Differently  expressed,  it  may 
be  said  :  The  world's  absolute  and  universal  time  is  the  actual 
succession  of  states  in  the  all-comprehending  Life  of  God. 
If,  then,  one  is  willing  to  substitute  for  the  mathematical 
symbol  of  oo,  the  conception  of  the  Life  of  an  Absolute  Self, 
one  may  validate  both  the  popular  and  the  scientific  assump- 
tion of  an  absolute  time  in  which  all  the  events  of  the  world 
are  ever  taking  place.  This  conception  is  that  of  a  series 
which  must  be  conceived  of  time-wise  and  yet  involves  the 
denial  of  a  beginning  or  end  to  itself;  a  series  that,  from 
every  now,  or  oo  i,  reaches  both  backward  and  forward  to  oo  n. 
The  transcendental  reality  of  time  is  the  all-comprehending 
Life  of  an  Absolute  Self. 

As  to  objections  which  arise  against  the  conception  of  an 
Absolute  Self  or  against  the  possibility  of  conceiving  of  an 
absolute  Being  as  existing  "  in  time,"  this  is  not  the  place 
for  a  detailed  consideration.  It  is,  indeed,  well  to  respect 
the  hesitation  of  Augustine,  who  says :  "  What  then  is  Time  ? 
If  no  one  asks  me,  I  know ;  if  I  wish  to  explain  it  to  one  that 
asketh,  I  know  not ; "  and  the  modesty  of  Professor  Sidg- 
wick's  declaration  :  "  The  relation  of  the  Absolute  to  time  is 
one  of  the  things  I  do  not  understand."  But  if  we  not  only 
accept  Mr.  Hodgson's  escape  from  a  paradox  which  is  only 
apparent  to  the  refuge  offered  by  the  conception  of  an  in- 
finite intelligence ;  but  also  carry  our  critical  analysis  to  a 
point  where  we  obtain  insight  into  the  ideal  and  yet  trans- 
subjective  nature  of  time-consciousness,  then  we  may  dis- 
cover that  the  contradictions  and  antinomies,  customarily 
alleged,  do  not  exist  at  all.  Our  time-consciousness  is, 
indeed,  limited ;  its  present  grasp,  its  recall  of  memory,  and 


TIME  213 

its  anticipatory  seizures  of  the  future,  are  all  feeble  and 
defective  enough.  But  "  really  to  be  in  time  "  is  not  per  se 
to  be  finite  and  limited.  And  surely  the  conception  symbol- 
ized by  a  simple  oo  is  no  grander  or  more  absolute  than  that 
symbolized  by  a  series,  oo1?  oo2,  oos,  .  .  .  oon.  Just  as 
surely  is  all  human  thought  about  Reality  made  grander  and 
more  worthy  to  stand,  when  for  this  symbol,  oo  ,  there  is  sub- 
stituted the  conception  of  the  Life  of  an  Absolute  Self.  At 
any  rate,  only  this  conception  seems  able  to  validate  the 
category  of  time  in  that  trans-subjective  and  universal  ap- 
plication of  it  which  the  development  of  human  knowledge 
presupposes,  demands,  and  perpetually  confirms. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SPACE  AND  MOTION 

THE  philosopher  Schopenhauer  emphasizes  the  necessity 
of  Space  as  a  principle  of  differentiation  (principium  individ- 
uationis)  which  rules  over  all  the  objects  of  man's  sensu- 
ous perception.  Human  experience  through  the  senses  is  not, 
indeed,  to  be  trusted  as  giving  the  truth  of  reality,  the  intui- 
tion of  the  Thing-in-itself ;  but  its  space-form  is  universal 
and  unquestioned  as  the  work  of  intellect  within  the  sphere 
of  phenomena.  Or,  to  use  the  Kantian  expression,  all  "phe- 
nomenal realities  "  are  cognizable  only  as  they  fall  under 
this  universal  principle  of  differentiation.  Now,  since  a 
critical  metaphysics  can  maintain  neither  the  crudely  realis- 
tic nor  the  unqualifiedly  subjective  views  of  the  origin  and 
the  applicability  of  our  space-concepts,  some  satisfactory 
mode  of  reconciling  the  truth  of  both  these  views  must  be 
sought.  And  we  discover  a  certain  clue  which  it  seems 
desirable  to  follow  with  the  search-light  of  reflective  philos- 
ophy while  considering  space  as  such  a  universal  and  funda- 
mental principle  of  differentiation.  If  it  were  permissible 
at  once  to  express  the  thought  in  a  tentative  way,  it  would 
seem  that  the  following  claim  might  be  made :  It  is  only 
when  space  is  operative  as  an  active  and  controlling  prin- 
ciple both  subjective  and  trans-subjective  that"£fa  other," 
and  many  "others,"  existing  in  the  unity  of  a  System  of 
Reality,  can  be  known  or  even  rendered  conceivable  to  man. 

Now  undoubtedly  the  temptation  to  consider  space  as 
something  far  different  from  an  active  principle  of  any  sort 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  215 

is  very  great.  The  temptation  is  even  essentially  connected 
with,  and  strongly  fostered  by,  the  very  experience  out  of 
which  emerge  all  our  workaday  conceptions  of  spatial 
qualities  and  spatial  relations.  The  nature  of  this  experi- 
ence makes  it  much  more  difficult  for  the  unreflecting  mind 
to  recognize  the  truth  that  space  is  not  an  entity,  or  a  purely 
passive  and  formal  principle  of  things,  than  is  the  case  with 
the  twin  category  of  time.  For  the  impressive  feature  of 
our  time-consciousness,  on  the  one  hand,  is  the  immediate 
awareness  of  change  in  the  content  of  experience.  There- 
fore time  itself  is  figuratively  said  to  move,  to  flee,  to  be 
"on  the  wing."  And  our  own  whole  Self  is  describable, 
from  its  time-wise  point  of  view,  as  a  "  stream  of  conscious- 
ness."  So  closely  connected  is  the  time-concept  with  the 
experience  of  change  that  we  need  considerable  reflection 
even  to  correct  the  meaning  for  reality  of  these  figures  of 
speech  enough  to  substitute  for  them  the  more  appropriate 
figures  of  speech.  It  is  really  we  ourselves,  and  the  things 
we  know,  that  are  changing  "  in  time  "  —  as  though  time 
itself  were  for  us,  and  for  things,  some  sort  of  an  unchang- 
ing medium.  But,  on  the  contrary,  with  space  we  are  only 
the  more  confirmed,  the  more  we  reflect,  in  the  figurative 
view  that  it  does  not  move  or  change ;  space  plainly  appears 
to  every  mind  as  a  motionless,  unchanging,  and  therefore 
internally  inactive  "medium,"  in  which  things  are  set.  We 
and  other  things  move  "in  space."  But  no  changes  of  posi- 
tion, or  of  size,  or  of  shape,  which  things  may  undergo  in 
this  medium,  have  any  effect  upon  space  itself ;  neither  has 
the  space,  in  which  they  are  set,  any  power  to  effect  changes 
in  things.  There  it  is  —  enveloping  and  surrounding  man 
and  all  other  beings,  as  a  sort  of  medium  of  existence,  to  be 
sure,  homogeneous,  yet  without  possessing  any  of  the  quali- 
fications which  he  and  things  possess ;  except  that  it  is  in- 
finitely extended  in  three  dimensions,  as  all  things  are 
extended  in  three  dimensions  to  a  limited  extent. 


216  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Of  course,  no  prolonged  attempt  at  reflection  is  needed  in 
order  to  convince  the  mind  that  all  such  modes  of  speaking 
are  figurative  and  unfit  to  reveal  the  final  truths  as  to  the  real 
nature  of  the  category  of  Space.  Yet  the  very  tenacity  with 
which  these  figures  of  speech  are  employed,  and  the  difficulty 
with  which  they  are  interpreted  into  a  satisfactory  theory  of 
reality,  are  significant  facts  in  the  history  of  metaphysical 
speculation. 

There  is  no  other  so-called  category  which  has  been  so 
much  discussed,  with  so  little  net  result,  as  the  category  of 
space.  Here  the  practical  implications  and  the  theoretical 
conclusions  seem  to  be  brought  into  the  sharpest  contrast,  if 
not  into  obvious  contradiction.  In  popular  uses,  space  is  the 
most  objective  and  realistic  of  all  human  conceptions ;  yet  it 
has  been  most  commonly  resolved  by  ontological  systems  into 
a  purely  subjective  form,  a  mere  idea  of  the  image-making 
faculty.  Space  is  the  necessary  presupposition  of  all  ethi- 
cal and  social  intercourse  between  men;  yet  it  has  been 
most  often  declared  to  be  totally  irrelevant  to  the  reality  of 
the  Self.  The  cheapest  forms  of  unanalytic,  common-sense 
realism  have  taken  this  conception  for  granted,  as  a  kind  of 
copying  off,  by  the  mind,  of  something  actually  existent;  but 
the  most  subtle  and  acutely  analytic  forms  of  psychological 
idealism  have  been  as  yet  unable  to  trace  satisfactorily  its 
mental  genesis  and  development.  Space,  considered  as 
"appearance,"  seems  visible  and  tangible,  as  time  is  not; 
but  in  answer  to  the  question,  What  then  really  is  space  ? 
one  can  only  fall  back  on  mysteries  that  lie  much  more  re- 
mote from  human  powers  of  envisagement  than  does  the 
mystery  of  time.  And  for  this  same  reason,  while  one  may 
venture  to  form  a  definite  mental  picture  of  what  it  is  for 
God  to  exist  in  time,  one  hesitates  even  to  raise  the  simi- 
lar question  in  one's  reflection  over  the  nature  of  the  space- 
concept.  Thus  it  comes  about  that  that  which  men  are 
inclined  at  first  to  believe  is  really  an  object  of  immediate 


THK 

UNIVERSITY 


SPACE   AND  MOTION 

and  indubitable  experience,  and  which  is  undoubtedly  the 
necessary  presupposition  of  all  their  grossest,  most  material 
experiences,  has  somehow  the  thinnest  and  most  evanescent 
roots  in  the  depths  of  Absolute  Being.  Ask  me  what  Time  is, 
and  I  can  respond ;  "Look  to  yourself  and  see ;  for  that  which 
your  conscious  life  is  will  give  to  you  the  envisagement  of 
a  real  being  in  time."  But  ask  me  what  Space  is,  and  I  can 
only  say :  "  It  is  the  form  in  which  the  show  of  things  takes 
place;  but  what  it  really  is,  I  cannot  say  in  terms  which 
admit  of  direct  envisagement  by  self-conscious  experience. " 
It  has  already  been  suggested,  however,  that  the  clue  to 
a  method  of  harmonizing  the  valid  claims  of  the  realistic  and 
the  subjective  views  of  the  category  of  space  may  be  discov- 
ered by  considering  space  as  a  principle  of  differentiation. 
Without  space,  "otherness"  could  not  be,  nor  any  multi- 
plicity of  thing-existences  in  the  unity  of  one  World.  [Let 
not  the  reader  be  offended  by  an  uncouthness  of  terms  which 
may  help  to  make  a  profound  and  difficult  truth  somewhat 
more  comprehensible.]  In  this  our  common  world  of  sen- 
suous experience,  here  am  I,'  and  there  are  You;  and  near 
by  here,  or  over  there,  are  myriads  and  myriads  of  other 
selves  and  things.  But  to  me  here,  —  wherever  I  may  be,  — 
you  there,  —  wherever  you  may  be,  —  are  always  a  thing ; 
and  I  am  always,  of  necessity,  known  to  you,  in  the  same 
way,  as  a  thing  external  to  you.  All  those  "  other  "  beings, 
which  are  really  other  than  both  of  us,  and  yet  are,  for  both 
of  us,  really  the  same,  become  known  in  the  same  way.  It 
is  space  which  makes  possible  this  infinite  differentiation 
(or  "externalizing"  of  each  to  every  "other")  of  real  beings, 
all  existing  in  the  unity  of  one  World.  Thus  is  made  actual 
a  system  of  beings  that  are  external  to  one  another  and  yet 
are  related  in  a  form  of  ideal  Unity;  this  function  must  be 
assigned  to  Space  whatever  view  be  taken  as  to  the  genesis, 
development,  and  validity,  of  our  space-perceptions  and 
space-concept. 


218  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

The  general  conception  of  Space  as  a  principle  of  dif- 
ferentiation —  whether  purely  subjective  or  also  trans-sub- 
jective —  admits  of  illustration  in  two  directions.  First : 
without  space-form  we  cannot  distinguish  the  Self  from  the 
not-self,  or  from  "  the  other  "  than  self,  as  being  external  to 
the  self.  Space  is  not,  indeed,  the  only  form  under  which 
this  so  fundamental  distinction  takes  place ;  but  it  is  one  of 
the  several  most  essential  or  categorical  of  such  forms.  I 
am  unable  to  identify  myself  with  you,  because  neither  the 
time-form  nor  the  content  of  the  two  streams  of  conscious- 
ness coincides.  Your  time-form  is  not  my  time-form ;  and 
our  separate  times  do  not  constitute  one  continuous  and  con- 
nected stream  of  consciousness.  Moreover,  the  content  of 
the  two  streams  is  markedly  differentiated,  for  each  one  of 
us,  by  the  distinction  between  self-consciousness  and  thing- 
consciousness.  But  this  essential  differentiation  is  itself 
accomplished  only  under  the  category  of  space.  This  state- 
ment can  be  verified  as  a  psychological  fact  by  showing  how 
the  consciousness  of  self  and  the  knowledge  of  a  world  of 
things  grow  together  in  every  human  mind,  in  a  sort  of  re- 
ciprocal dependence.  Only  as  these  two  beings  —  namely, 
I  that  perceive  or  think  about  the  thing,  and  the  Thing 
which  I  perceive  or  think  about  —  become  more  definitely 
«et  off  from  each  other  can  the  knowledge  of  either  be  devel- 
oped. But  this  very  process  of  "  externalizing "  is  always 
an  instance  under  the  general  principle  of  space-form.  Or 
to  state  the  truth  of  cognitive  experience  in  a  somewhat 
more  abstract  and  metaphysical  way :  Consciousness  of  Self 
and  World-consciousness  develop  together  in  a  sort  of  re- 
ciprocal dependence ;  and  this  reciprocal  dependence  is  essen- 
tially connected  with  the  progressive  recognition  of  that 
category  which  makes  the  world  "  other  than, "  or  "  external 
to, "  the  self.  We  say  "  other  than  "  or  "  external  to ;  "  — 
for  although  there  are,  so  to  speak,  other  ways  in  which, 
and  relations  by  which,  each  man  distinguishes  his  self  here 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  219 

and  that  world  there,  yet  the  way  that  looks  "space-wise," 
and  the  spatial  relation  of  "externality,"  is  essential  to  the 
distinction.  Every  object-thing,  whatever  else  in  qualities 
or  relations  or  activities  it  may  be  or  may  accomplish,  is 
always  given  as  external  to  the  Self. 

It  is  universally  admitted,  both  as  viewed  from  the  point 
taken  by  the  most  naive  realism  and  also  from  that  held  by 
the  advocate  of  the  doctrine  of  the  transcendental  ideality  of 
space,  that  "things"  are  to  be  known  only  as  external  and 
extended.  This  necessity  which  attaches  itself  to  all  human 
cognition  of  things,  the  realism  of  the  totally  unreflecting 
mind  considers  to  be  explained  by  the  affirmation  that  things- 
in-themselves,  or  things  totally  independent  of  mind,  are 
actually  external  and  extended.  From  this  unreflecting 
point  of  view  our  mental  representations  of  things  as  in 
space  are  a  kind  of  copying-off  process,  dependent  for  its 
validity  upon  the  extra-mental  existence  of  beings  resem- 
bling—  space-wise  —  the  system  of  mental  representations. 
But  the  Kantian  doctrine  accounts  for  this  necessity  by  re- 
ferring it  wholly  to  the  mental  constitution ;  although  Kant 
himself  is  repeatedly  caught  in  an  explicit  or  concealed 
reference  to  some  kind  of  a  trans-subjective  cause  of  this 
form  of  mental  representation.  Both  extremes  of  view  agree 
that  all  things  known  by  man,  whether  perceived  or  only 
imagined,  must  be  known  "in  Space."  Both,  however, 
either  vacillate  or  deny,  when  the  question  is  raised  as  to 
the  applicability  of  the  space-concept  to  the  Self.  It  is 
rather  customary  to  deny  that  the  mind,  or  soul,  or  Ego, 
exists  in  space;  —  or,  at  any  rate,  it  is  held  that  we  do 
not,  all  of  us  (that  is,  both  body  and  mind),  come  under  the 
necessity  of  submission  to  space-form,  as  all  things  mani- 
festly do. 

Every  form  of  the  negative  position  toward  the  applica- 
bility of  the  space-concept  to  the  Self  demands  something 
more  than  an  unreflecting  assent.  It  is  necessary  to  ask, 


220  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

What  is  meant  when  I  am  told :  —  "To  be  sure,  you  know 
all  things,  including  me  and  other  human  beings,  only  under 
the  form  of  space ;  but  you,  yourself,  are  not  known  to  your- 
self as  existing  '  in  space. ' '  Let  us  take  this  appeal  for  a 
meaning  to  the  actual  facts  of  our  common  experience.  If, 
now,  by  the  word  "self"  is  understood  what  not  only  the 
child  but  also  every  adult  understands  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses, it  is  certainly  not  true  that  I  do  not  know  myself  to 
exist  in  space.  For  the  essential  thing  in  every  popular 
conception  of  the  Self  is  just  this,  that  when  one  is  asked 
a  question  as  to  one's  whereabouts,  one  can  lay  one's  hand 
on  one's  heart,  or  one's  head,  and  respond:  "Here  am  I." 
Indeed,  this  "  Here-am-I  "  is  so  essential  a  part  of  the  answer 
which  we  feel  ourselves  compelled  to  give,  even  when  we  are 
asked  to  define  our  most  essential  nature,  that  no  man  can 
easily  refrain  from  bringing  it  to  the  very  front  in  evidence. 
In  moments  when  living  is  full  of  some  special  form  of  emo- 
tion or  of  action,  it  is  most  emphatically  true  that  experience 
compels  every  man  to  emphasize,  in  his  conception  of  the 
self,  some  particular  part  of  his  bodily  organism.  The  con- 
nection between  the  Ego  and  this  particular  part  of  the 
organism  is  ordinarily  expressed  in  one  of  two  ways ;  either 
the  local,  or  the  instrumental.  I  know  myself  as  either 
here,  immanent  and  suffering  or  doing,  in  the  organ;  or  I 
am  just  outside  of  the  organ,  and  am  using  it  as  my  instru- 
ment. 1  am  suffering  pain  in  my  heart,  or  my  heart  is  giv- 
ing me  pain ;  I  am  feeling  the  action  in  my  moving  arm,  or 
I  am  acting  upon  something  else  with  my  arm.  In  either 
form  of  speech  some  kind  of  a  relation  which  is  covered 
under  the  general  conception  of  Space  is  applied  to  the  feel- 
ing, perceiving,  and  willing  Self.  In  a  general  way,  the 
differentiating  and  externalizing  function  of  the  category  of 
space  seems  as  truly  implied  in  these  as  in  any  other  of  our 
cognitive  experiences. 

It  is,  of  course,  at  once  to  be  remembered  that  such  facts 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  221 

of  knowledge  as  those  just  mentioned  concern  the  psycho- 
physical  self,  —  the  man  as  a  kind  of  two-sided  unity,  or  as 
having  a  dual  nature,  both  body  and  mind.  To  the  mind 
itself,  to  the  pure  Ego,  it  is  customary  to  affirm  that  spatial 
conceptions  are  in  no  respects  applicable.  And  into  what 
absurdities  and  foolish  contradictions  our  thinking  is  plunged 
by  the  attempt  to  apply,  in  detail,  conceptions  of  spatial 
qualities  and  spatial  relations  to  minds,  there  is  scarcely  need 
to  mention.  Every  thing,  for  example,  is  not  only  "  out  of  " 
every  other,  but  the  distance  at  which  it  is  out,  or  the  dis- 
tance between  the  two  things,  is  measurable  or  calculable  as 
so  much,  and  no  more.  Even  for  the  atom,  the  phenomena 
of  isomerism  of  position  seem  to  make  necessary  all  the 
spatial  qualifications  of  larger  things.  But  how  far  is  the 
Ego  from  the  organ  when,  for  example,  the  nerve-tract  con- 
necting that  particular  organ  with  the  sensory-motor  centres 
of  the  brain  has  been  severed  ?  Nor  do  we  escape  the  per- 
plexity and  the  contradictions  if,  while  admitting  that  exten- 
sion in  space  is  inapplicable  to  minds,  the  attempt  is  made 
to  vindicate  for  them  position  in  space.  It  is  a  certain 
vacillation  upon  this  matter  which  is  one  of  the  causes  that 
makes  Lotze's  view  of  the  nature  and  applicability  of  this 
category  confusing.1  But  how  avoid  vacillation,  and  yet 
make  clear  the  meaning  of  "the  localization  of  cerebral 
function,"  or  connect,  in  whatever  terms,  the  stream  of 
consciousness  as  a  whole  with  the  molecular  constitution 
and  physico-chemical  behavior  of  the  brain  ?  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  shall  we  be  forced  into  the  absurdities  of  a 
"figurate  conception"  (to  borrow  Hegel's  somewhat  scornful 
phrase)  which  virtually  regards  the  faculties  in  particular, 
or  the  Ego  in  general,  as  moving  about  from  brain-centre  to 
brain-centre,  after  the  fashion  of  birds  hopping  from  twig  to 
twig  in  the  top  of  some  tree  ? 

1  See  his  "  Metaphysic,"  Book  II.,  chapter  i. :  "  Of  the  Subjectivity  of  our  Per- 
ception of  Space  "  —  a  chapter  which  seems  to  us  the  most  severe  and  suggestive 
criticism  of  this  category  which  has  ever  been  written. 


222  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

It  is,  to  a  certain  large  extent,  such  difficulties  as  the 
foregoing  which  drive  some  students  of  metaphysics  to  the 
extremes  of  subjectivism  in  their  treatment  of  the  category 
of  Space.  It  is  owing  to  the  excessive  fear,  at  least  in  part, 
of  such  forms  of  "  figurate  conception "  that  a  writer  like 
Paulsen  feels  himself  justified  in  ruthlessly  forcing  a  path 
through  the  thickets  of  a  sceptical  epistemology,  and  then 
upward  to  the  cold  and  barren  heights  of  a  mystical  Ideal- 
ism. Scant  comfort  is  it  to  the  mind  which  insists  upon 
thinking  out  its  bearings  clearly,  that,  when  alone  on  those 
heights,  it  may  indulge  an  emotional  faith  in  maintaining 
still  some  kind  of  a  relation  to  some  kind  of  a  Reality. 
Physics  and  psychology,  indeed,  combine  to  furnish  their 
warrant  to  Paulsen1  when  he  declares  that  idealism,  from 
Plato  to  Berkeley,  concludes:  "The  spatial  world  cannot  be 
the  absolute  reality ;  extension  and  divisibility  are  not  com- 
patible with  absolute  reality."  Experience  may  also  war- 
rant him  in  affirming:  "We  may  imagine  beings  whose 
sense-organs  and  percepts  are  different  from  ours,  and  who 
therefore  have  different  forms  of  arranging  the  elements." 
But  to  say,  "  We  can  imagine  an  intellect  for  which  neither 
the  '  before  '  and  '  after, '  nor  the  '  outside  '  and  '  by  the  side 
of,'  have  any  meaning,"2  comes  perilously  near  upsetting 
the  very  subjectivism  —  and  that  in  its  most  tenable  form  — 
which  it  is  the  design  of  all  such  declarations  to  establish. 
For,  on  the  contrary,  my  imagination  and  my  intellect  must 
represent  all  its  objects  with  a  meaning  for  "  before  "  and 
"after,"  and  for  "outside  "  and  "by  the  side  of."  "  Ausser- 
einander  und  nebeneinander  seize  ich  meine  G-egenstande." 
But  when  still  later  3  Paulsen  plumply  declares  that  "  Space, 
Time,  and  the  Categories,  are  as  much  products  of  evolution 
as  are  eyes,  ears,  and  brains,"  he  has  destroyed  all  possi- 
bility, for  himself  and  for  every  other  thinker,  of  pursuing  in. 
a  legitimate  and  fruitful  way  the  very  business  of  systematic 

1  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  348.         2  Ibid.,  p.  350.       8  Ibid.,  p.  413. 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  223 

metaphysics.  The  essential  and  unchanging  forms  of  cogni- 
tion have  been  reduced  to  the  rank  of  being  the  (must  we  not 
say,  fortuitous)  offspring  of  a  thought  so  complex,  so  vague 
and  shifty,  as  yet  so  full  of  internal  contradictions  and  so 
much  the  child  of  the  Zeitgeist,  that  it  can  itself  ill  claim 
title  to  be  called  one  of  the  latest  born  of  the  categories. 
What  is  there  about  this  word  "evolution"  which  makes  it 
so  mighty  as  to  down  all  the  other  conceptions  of  the  human 
understanding  ?  And  when  the  waters  of  experience  in 
which  our  growing  powers  are  bathed  become  somewhat 
murky,  why  proceed  at  once  to  pour  out  the  living  child  of 
reality,  "  with  the  bath  "  ? 

We  note,  however,  that  two  assumptions,  which  are  by 
no  means  self-evident,  strengthen  those  difficulties  of  imagi- 
nation upon  which  a  sceptical  subjectivism  chiefly  relies  in 
its  treatment  of  the  category  of  space.  These  are,  first,  the 
assumption  that  what  is  essential  about  the  space-concept  as 
a  form  of  mental  representation  is  to  have  things  presented 
to  perception  as  a  sort  of  smooth,  continuous  extension ;  and, 
second,  the  further  assumption  that  the  relation  between  this 
form  of  mental  representation  itself  and  the  "  absolute  real- 
ity "  can  be  properly  conceived  of  only  as  a  certain  copying- 
off  process.  Now  neither  of  these  two  assumptions  is  true ; 
and  we  shall  soon  show  that  they  are  not  true,  by  pointing 
out  positively,  and  with  some  detail,  what  are  the  facts  of 
cognition,  and  its  trustworthy  assumptions.  Let  it  be  no- 
ticed now,  however,  that  if  space  be  expounded  as  some  sort 
of  an  active  differentiating  principle  —  both  subjective  and 
trans-subjective,  both  a  form  of  mental  life  and  a  form  of 
that  Reality  which  manifests  itself,  in  all  knowledge,  to 
man  —  then  many  of  the  customary  difficulties  vanish.  More- 
over, the  essential  nature  and,  if  we  may  so  speak,  the  moral 
and  spiritual  value  of  the  category  of  Space,  then  reveal 
themselves.  For  —  to  return  to  the  point  of  standing  from 
which  the  discussions  proceeded —  space  certainly  has  this 


224  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

function  of  differentiation  in  the  genesis  and  growth  of 
human  knowledge.  It  has  also  all  the  supreme  value  which 
such  a  function  implies.  Considered  as  exercising  this 
function,  it  does  really  get  application  to  the  entire  life  of 
every  self  or  self-like  being. 

Undoubtedly  we  may,  if  we  choose,  regard  the  Self  as 
pretty  purely  a  mental  activity.  It  is  I  that  think  and  feel 
and  will.1  Regarded  as  the  subject  of  these  activities,  as 
activities  merely,  I  am  not  to  be  spoken  of  as  external  to  the 
activities ;  nor  are  the  objects  —  whether  they  are  states  of 
myself  or  "  thing-objects  "  —  to  be  spoken  of  as  external  to 
me.  Even  much  less  am  I  or  they  spread  out,  over  so  many 
square  feet  or  cubic  metres  of  space.  But  considered  thus 
merely  (that  is,  as  pure  unrelated  reality  of  thinking,  feeling, 
and  willing  subject)  I  am  not  a  Self  actually  existent  among 
other  selves  and  things,  in  the  unity  of  one  World.  And 
it  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  my  standing  in  manifold  rela- 
tions to  beings  "  other  "  than  myself  without  the  introduc- 
tion of  some  principle  of  differentiation  which  shall  render 
them  external  rather  than  interior  to  me,  as  are  my  own 
conscious  states  regarded  as  mere  states. 

In  insisting  upon  this  function  of  space  in  the  form  of 
"externalizing"  "the  other"  for  every  conscious  Self,  we 
are  not  making  anew  the  old  and  vain  attempt  to  devise  a 
deduction  of  this  category.  It  is  not  our  point  of  conten- 
tion simply  that  the  human  mind  is  unable  to  do  without 
some  principle  of  differentiation ;  and  that  by  chance,  as  it 
were,  nature,  in  its  manifold  processes  of  evolution,  has  hit 
upon  this  particular  principle.  Neither  is  it  intended  to 
smuggle  in  an  explanation  only  apparent,  of  the  category 
under  an  ambiguous  use  of  the  word  "external."  The  space- 
concept  must  be  received  as  one  of  the  categories;  and, 
neither  disregarding  the  use  of  figurative  terms  for  express- 

1  In  this  connection  see  chapters  iii.  and  iv.  in  the  author's  "  Philosophy  of 
Mind." 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  225 

ing  this  concept,  nor  insisting  upon  giving  to  these  terms 
a  literal  but  foolish  interpretation,  will  help  us  to  discover 
the  essential  service  in  all  human  knowledge  which  this 
category  performs.  But  is  not  this  the  most  striking  thing 
about  this  service :  It  is  under  space-form  that  all  other 
selves  and  all  other  things  are  differentiated,  for  each  self, 
from  itself?  And  to  the  extent  of  making  such  a  differ- 
entiation actual,  the  category  of  Space  applies  also  to  the 
Self.  When  1  know  any  other  than  myself,  as  an  "other," 
then  I  set  that  other  out  of  me,  as  in  a  system  of  beings,  all 
united  in  one  Space. 

The  essential  nature  of  that  function  of  differentiation 
which  is  performed  by  the  space-concept  for  all  man's 
knowledge  of  things  —  their  qualities,  changes,  and  rela- 
tions—  is  too  obvious  to  need  more  than  a  brief  mention. 
Every  particular  being,  in  order  even  to  be  known  as  a 
"  Thing, "  must  possess  either  perceived  or  imagined  spatial 
qualities.  This  becomes  true  of  every  element,  or  part,  of 
each  thing,  just  so  soon  as  our  experience  or  our  theoretical 
interests  have  determined  how  we  will  choose  to  resolve  it 
into  its  elements,  or  parts.  For  example,  the  tree  over 
there  is  external  not  only  to  me,  but  also  to  other  trees 
which  are  in  the  same  neighborhood,  and  it  has  a  certain 
extension  —  "  in  space. "  But  its  different  parts,  however  I 
choose  to  construct  them  by  processes  of  mental  discrimina- 
tion, —  top  and  bottom,  right-hand  side  and  left-hand  side, 
or  trunk,  branches,  twigs,  leaves,  and  buds,  —  are  all  ex- 
ternal to  one  another,  and  each  has  its  own  extension  in 
space.  And  if  its  parts  are  still  further  differentiated  by 
analyzing  it  into  their  minutest  tangible  or  visible  elements, 
the  same  thing  remains  true  of  these  elements.  Even  when 
imagination  transcends  the  limits  of  the  visible  and  the  tan- 
gible, —  no  matter  how  much  these  limits  are  first  extended 
by  instrumental  methods,  — each  element  must  be  conceived 
of  as  differentiated  space-wise  from  every  other.  Those 

15 


226  A  THEORY  OF  EEALITY 

mathematical  points,  which  a  certain  theory  of  the  constitu- 
tion of  matter  strives  to  regard  as  immaterial  centres  of  force, 
must  be  conceived  of,  and  described,  as  here  and  there,  set 
side  by  side,  or  so  far  distant  from  each  other,  etc.  Posi- 
tive void  of  extension  cannot  be  imagined  without  invoking 
the  differentiating  function  of  the  category  of  Space. 

Now  the  more  obvious  and  fundamental,  if  not  all  the  pos- 
sible changes  in  things,  consist  of  different  directions  and 
velocities  of  the  whole  mass,  or  of  the  parts,  or  of  the  ele- 
ments, of  those  things.  Actual  motion  is  the  great  and  the 
universal  fact  in  the  being  and  the  life  of  every  physical 
thing.  Possibility  of  movement  is  the  undoubted  factor  in 
all  our  conceptions  of  what  things  can  do.  What  can  the 
world  of  physical  beings  do  ?  It  can  move ;  and  it  does 
move.  Movement  is  the  form  of  change  which  all  such 
beings  share  in  common.  Without  stopping  to  examine  the 
ingenious  attempts  of  philosophy,  like  that  of  Trendelen- 
burg l  for  example,  to  make  "  motion "  the  sole  universal 
category,  or  "  vehicle  "  of  all  the  categories,  we  cannot  refuse 
to  speculate  upon  the  significance,  for  the  nature  of  reality, 
of  such  permanent  and  universal  facts  of  man's  experience 
with  things.  "He  who  knows  not  motion,"  said  Aristotle,, 
"  knows  not  Nature. "  But  even  the  customary  and  unsatisfac- 
tory definition  of  motion  as  "  a  change  of  place  "  emphasizes 
the  differentiation  effected  in  the  world  of  things  by  the 
principle  called  Space.  There  are  indefinitely  many  places, 
actual  and  conceivable,  in  which  things  may  be ;  and  the 
change  of  things  from  one  to  another  of  those  places  can  only 
be  accomplished  on  condition  that  the  places  shall  somehow 
be  kept  separate  while  the  things  remain  the  same.  This, 
introduces  to  our  thought  the  effective  and  separating  nature 

1  See  his  "  Logische  Untersuchungen,"  the  entire  Band  I. :  "  Weil  die  Beweg- 
ung  eine  in  sich  einfache  Thatigkeit  ist,  die  sich  nur  erzeugen,  nicht  /erlegen 
lasst,  wird  sie  zugleich  die  letzte  sein,  die  aus  keiner  andern  stammt,  und  wird 
darum  auch  aus  sich  erkannt  werden ;  weil  sie  die  letzte  ist,  wird  sie  allgemein 
sein  und  jeder  Thatigkeit  zum  Grunde  liegen,"  etc. 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  227 

of  space.  The  differentiating  function  of  this  category  must 
be  invoked  in  order  to  understand  our  experience  with  both 
the  interior  and  the  external  movements  of  things. 

Among  the  many  objective  relations,  which  things  may 
sustain  to  one  another,  such  as  those  of  kinship  and  differ- 
ence in  qualities,  or  of  descent  in  the  same  or  in  diver- 
gent lines  of  generation,  the  relations  of  position  and  motion 
jii  space  are  ever  most  conspicuous  and  most  important. 
Without  knowledge  of  such  relations  science  cannot  arrange 
things  into  species  and  genera,  or  trace  their  descent  from 
one  another,  or  their  distribution  over  the  face  of  the  earth. 
And  as  for  astronomy,  mechanics,  and  physics, — not  to 
mention  so-called  pure  mathematics,  —  the  sciences  which 
go  by  these  names  are  little  else  than  systems  of  abstractions 
statable  only  in  terms  that  employ  constantly  the  differen- 
tiating function  of  the  category  of  space.  How  all  quantity 
and  measurement,  and  all  number  and  ideas  of  unity  or  of 
manifoldness,  are  dependently  related  to  this  same  principle 
will  appear  in  the  proper  connections. 

Thus  far  Space  has  been  spoken  of  as  though  it  were  an 
active  principle  that  accomplishes  something  necessary  to 
any  knowledge  either  of  Self  or  of  Things,  as  existing  to- 
gether in  a  unitary  system.  Space,  that  is,  has  been  spoken 
of  as  though  it  were  an  agent.  And  yet  the  discussion  began 
by  calling  attention  to  that  persistent  "figurate  conception" 
of  this  category,  which  both  the  popular  and  the  scientific 
consciousness  employs,  and  which  regards  it  as  some  kind 
of  an  inactive  entity,  or  a  pure  stationary  form  or  frame- 
work for  the  setting  of  things.  Now,  it  was  just  the  in- 
sufficiency of  this  latter  view,  when  taken  on  its  own 
grounds,  which  we  desired  to  show.  Whatever  else  space 
is,  or  is  not,  it  must  somehow  perform  its  function  of  differ- 
entiation for  us  and  for  the  things  which  we  know.  For  this 
is  the  essential  truth  of  fact  in  all  human  knowledge,  so  far 
as  knowledge  falls  under  this  so-called  category.  All  that 


228  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

is  "other"  in  man's  known  world,  is  external  to  each  man's 
self;  all  things  are,  and  change,  and  stand  related  (one  and 
others),  only  as  they  comply  with  the  terms  of  this  function 
of  the  space-concept.  Even  if  a  man  considers  his  own  body 
entirely,  or  any  member  of  it,  not  excepting  the  brain,  as 
belonging  to  the  sphere  of  the  wo£-self,  still  this  differentia- 
ting function  of  the  space-concept  must  be  invoked. 

But  is  space  properly  spoken  of,  as  though  it  were  an 
active  principle  ?  To  this  question  scientific  psychology 
gives  no  hesitating  or  equivocal  answer.  It  demonstrates 
beyond  doubt  that,  considered  from  the  psychological  point  of 
view,  space  is  most  properly  and  precisely  just  that.  Sub- 
jectively regarded,  space,  in  fact,  is  the  construct  of  an 
active  and  discriminating  Self.  Like  all  other  constructs  of 
this  same  agent,  it  begins  in  darkness  and  confusion,  grows 
into  clearness  and  precision  of  mental  representation  —  dif- 
ferently for  different  individuals;  and  attains  its  highest 
development  in  that  systematic  doctrine  of  spatial  qualities 
and  spatial  relations  which  the  physical  sciences  so  success- 
fully employ.  As  for  the  so-called  "space-concept,"  it  is 
like  every  other  form  of  a  concept  in  respect  of  the  mental 
faculties  which  it  requires  for  its  formation.  As  mere  con- 
cept, it  bears  an  abstract  and  formal  character,  and  depends 
upon  the  comprehensiveness  and  degree  of  success  which 
different  individuals  meet  in  their  attempts  to  think  out  the 
meanings  of  their  experience.  But  it  is  a  "category";  be- 
cause it  is,  at  any  rate,  a  necessary  and  universal  form  of 
the  human  mental  representation  of  things.  The  world  of 
things,  and  of  selves  as  related  to  things,  is  known  by  all 
men  to  exist  in  space ;  and  this  world  cannot  be  known  to 
exist  otherwise  than  as  existent  in  space.  Moreover,  with 
the  more  correct  and  profound  recognition  of  the  meaning 
of  this  category,  we  deny  the  statement  of  Paulsen,  that 
any  world  of  different  beings  can  even  be  imagined,  or 
thought,  as  not  coming  under  space-form. 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  229 

In  spite  of  the  concentration  of  experimental,  introspec- 
tive, and  theoretical  effort  upon  the  psychology  of  space,  the 
subject  remains  in  an  incomplete  and  unsatisfactory  condi- 
tion. There  is  comparatively  little  difficulty  in  arriving  at 
agreement  concerning  all  the  principal  problems  in  the  de- 
scriptive history  of  the  time-consciousness.  But  with  the 
problems  in  the  genesis  and  development  of  space-conscious- 
ness the  case  is  not  so.  Students  of  psychology  are  still 
striving  to  answer  the  poetical  inquiry :  — 

"  Who  can  tell  what  a  baby  thinks  ? 

What  of  the  cradle-roof,  that  flies 
Forward  and  backward  through  the  air  ?  " 

And  the  constantly  increasing  throng  of  incompetent  inves- 
tigators only  seems  to  emphasize  the  words  of  Diderot :  "  To 
prepare  and  question  one  born  blind,  would  not  have  been 
unworthy  of  the  combined  talents  of  Newton,  Descartes, 
Leibnitz,  and  Locke."  Yet  we  cannot  sympathize  at  all 
with  the  position  taken  by  the  majority  of  writers  on  the 
metaphysics  of  space,  from  Kant  to  Mr.  Bradley,1  the  latter 
of  whom  declares :  "  We  have  nothing  to  do  here  with  the 
psychological  origin  of  the  perception  "  (that  is,  of  space). 
On  the  contrary,  the  study  of  the  genesis  and  development 
of  man's  perception  and  conception  of  space  is  the  only  way 
to  approach  the  important  metaphysical  problems  involved. 
Although  even  the  following  brief  account  of  the  points 
made  good,  in  our  judgment,  by  modern  psychology  will 
contain  certain  opinions  that  other  students  will  dispute, 
the  agreement  on  which  we  can  count  is  necessary  and  suffi- 
cient to  establish  and  maintain  our  central  metaphysical 
tenet. 

The  most  primitive  "  stuff, "  from  which  space-conscious- 
ness takes  its  genesis,  consists  of  certain  obscure  and  com- 

1  Appearance  and  Reality,  p.  35. 


230  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

plex  conscious  modifications  called  "sensations  of  motion." 
Originally  these  are  not  perceptions  of  motion,  or  of  things 
in  motion;  nor  can  they  be  regarded  as  set  by  the  active 
mind  into  the  framework  of  an  already  constructed  space. 
On  account,  however,  of  the  constitution  of  the  psycho-phys- 
ical organism  and  in  accordance  with  its  inherited  functions, 
these  complex  sensations  are  of  immense  importance  in  the 
development  of  the  Self,  and  of  its  knowledge  of  Things. 
The  child  comes,  all  alive  —  writhing,  kicking,  screaming 
—  into  a  world  that  is  also  alive  to  its  very  core.  These 
most  primitive  sensations  of  motion  are  thus  both  the  prod- 
ucts of  self -initiated  movements  of  the  organism,  and  also  of 
the  passively  received  movements  of  things,  as  they  change 
their  relations  to  this  organism  and  so  stimulate  it  in  mani- 
fold different  ways.  This  primitive  experience  is  full  of 
pain  and  also  of  pleasure ;  it  has  both  its  risks  and  its  re- 
wards. Thus  the  modifications  of  sense-consciousness  which 
the  active  self  constantly  undergoes  by  virtue  of  its  neces- 
sary commerce  with  active  things,  become  both  the  stimuli 
to  its  appropriate  modes  of  action  and  the  indicice  of  the 
changing  relations  in  which  things  stand  to  the  self.  That 
is  to  say,  sensations  of  motion  serve  as  "  local  signs. " 

The  image-making  and  discriminating  consciousness  must 
be  invoked  in  order  to  give  system,  and  a  regulated  value 
and  orderly  arrangement,  to  this  primitive  horde  of  sensa- 
tion-processes. The  contemporaneous  existence  of  two  or 
more  groups  of  sensations  in  consciousness,  even  if  they  are 
of  that  peculiarly  differentiated  character  which  belongs  to 
different  sensation-complexes  of  motion,  does  not  of  itself 
necessitate  the  perception  of  space.  This  twofoldness  will 
not  alone  warrant  the  mind  either  in  placing  the  sensation- 
complexes  "side  by  side,"  or  in  attributing  them  succes- 
sively to  the  same  object  that  has  moved  from  one  place  to 
another.  Psychology  cannot,  indeed,  derive  the  compulsion 
to  experience  things  in  space  from  any  amount  of  mere  dif- 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  231 

ferences  in  the  content  of  simultaneous  or  successive  sense- 
consciousnesses.  It  can  in  this  way  only  account  for  the  dues 
made  use  of  by  the  mind  in  perfecting  its  experience  under 
spatial  form.  Further  explanation  of  the  development  of 
the  space-consciousness  requires  two  other  assumptions. 
One  of  these  involves  the  work  of  that  same  image-making 
and  discriminating  intellect  to  which  reference  has  just  been 
made.  The  other  implies  some  native  tendency  or  impulse, 
amounting  to  a  compulsion  to  make  just  this  peculiar  kind 
of  an  arrangement  of  different  "  moments  "  of  sense-con- 
sciousness. In  these  two  assumptions  we  recognize  again  the 
Self  as  a  constructive  and  differentiating  principle,  which  acts 
according  to  its  own  nature  in  its  apprehension  of  a  World  of 
things. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  further  the  history  of  the 
development  of  space-consciousness  as  studied  from  the  sub- 
jective or  purely  psychological  point  of  view.  Apparently 
the  statement  of  Teichmuller l  is  true:  "Spatiality  is,  there- 
fore, so  far  as  experience  goes,  only  an  arrangement  of  touch 
and  sight-sensations."  But  even  if  we  accept  the  conten- 
tion of  those  who,  like  James  and  Ward,  hold  that  all  sensa- 
tions have  a  sort  of  vague  primitive  "bigness,"  we  do  not 
escape  the  necessity  for  believing  in  a  process  of  "the 
integration  or  synthesis  of  these  proximately  elementary 
presentations  which  are  called  perceptions,  intuitions,  sen- 
sory-motor reactions,  and  the  like."  "Arrangement,"  in  the 
one  case,  implies  an  active  principle  in  the  form  of  a  mind ; 
and  not  less  so  do  the  words  "  integration "  and  "  syn- 
thesis." Nor  is  this  view  of  the  psychological  genesis  and 
development  of  space-consciousness  changed  as  we  watch 
the  process  which  results  in  that  wonderful  diremption  of 
the  objective  world  into  the  Self  and  external  Things.  Al- 
though this  process  involves,  according  to  Volkmann,2  two 


1  Die  wirkliche  und  die  scheinbare  Welt,  p.  247  f. 

2  Lehrbuch  der  Psychologie,  II.  p.  136  (3d  ed.). 


232  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

constitutive  marks,  —  namely,  projection  into  an  outside 
space  and  becoming  conscious  of  dependency  in  having  the 
sensation,  —  it  involves  no  less  the  differentiating  activity, 
space-wise,  of  the  thinking,  feeling,  and  willing  mind.  It 
is  indeed,  —  to  use  the  phrase  of  this  author  —  "  the  deter- 
mining of  the  other  by  the  without ; "  but  it  is  even  more 
obviously  a  determining  that  the  other  shall  be  without,  by 
act  of  that  which  knows  itself  as  within. 

Mere  projection  and  arrangement  of  sensation-complexes 
into  more  stable  combinations,  under  space-form,  do  not 
give  us  the  cognition  of  a  real  thing.  Every  "Thing"  is 
something  much  more  than  a  mere  spatial  arrangement  of 
the  sensation-complexes,  with  "  their  escort  of  images, "  etc. ; 
every  thing  has  already  been  proved  to  be  a  concrete  realiza- 
tion of  all  the  categories.  Subjectively  regarded,  however, 
every  concrete  reality  receives  the  space-form  which  it 
comes  to  possess,  through  an  active  and  attentive  synthesis 
of  the  perceiving  mind. 

It  is  customary  for  those  who  regard  space  as  a  purely 
subjective  principle  to  explain  its  universal  application  to 
the  objects  of  our  cognitive  experience  by  considering  it  as 
a  constitutional  form  of  mental  representation.  Thus,  to 
represent  all  things  to  themselves,  as  spatially  extended  and 
spatially  related,  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  the  mind  of 
mankind.  Space,  like  all  the  other  categories,  is  a  priori. 
But  the  character  and  the  clearness  of  every  individual's 
space-concepts,  considered  as  abstractions  and  as  capable  of 
scientific  application,  may  well  enough  be  matters  of  an  in- 
definite differentiation,  in  dependence  on  education,  native 
talents,  and  even  trivial  circumstances.  That  the  mental 
representation  of  things  in  space  is,  in  some  sort,  native 
to  all  normal  human  minds,  no  one  can  doubt.  But  is  this 
admission  enough  in  itself  to  account  for  the  universal  and 
necessary  objectivity  of  space  —  in  the  form  in  which  the 
experience  of  man  with  things  exhibits  such  objectivity  as 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  233 

universal  and  necessary?     We  do  not  by  any  means  believe 
that  it  is. 

For  let  our  brief  study  of  the  so-called  "  objective  validity" 
of  the  space-concept  begin  by  trying  to  get  clear  ideas  of 
what  both  ordinary  and  scientific  knowledge  demands  of  any 
attempt  at  explanation.  That  is  indeed  a  cheap  way  of  vir- 
tually dismissing  the  entire  problem  which  concludes  the 
pure  subjectivity  of  the  category  of  space  from  the  subjec- 
tive and  relative  character  of  the  space-presentations  of  all 
men.  For  it  is  just  this  universal  applicability  of  our  mental 
representations  of  space,  though  in  a  way  to  take  an  infinite 
number  of  relations  into  account,  which  itself  needs  to  be 
accounted  for. 

An  analysis  of  the  objective  experience  of  man  with  space 
shows  that  the  following  particular  truths  are  inextricably 
interwoven  with  all  knowledge  of  things  and  of  the  self  in 
relation  to  things.  To  deny  these  truths  is  to  destroy  the 
integrity  of  the  very  structure  of  human  knowledge.  First: 
the  spatial  perceptions  and  conceptions  of  different  individ- 
uals vary  in  dependence  upon  changes  in  attention,  imagi- 
nation, degree  of  discrimination,  etc. ;  they  are,  therefore, 
undoubtedly  subjective,  in  the  most  solipsistic  meaning  of 
that  word.  Every  individual  has  his  peculiarities  in  re- 
spect of  the  space-form  of  mental  representation.  Second : 
Certain  features  of  the  spatial  perceptions  and  conceptions 
of  all  men  are  alike,  and  the  laws  of  the  development  of 
these  perceptions  and  conceptions  are  the  same  for  all  men. 
In  some  undoubted  meaning  of  the  words,  space-form  is  the 
universal  and  necessary  form  of  the  mental  representation 
of  things  by  man.  Third:  The  changes  in  the  spatial  per- 
ceptions and  conceptions  of  men  are,  indeed  "  relative ; "  but 
this  very  relativity  itself  demands  an  explanation  that  can 
be  found  only  in  actual  changes  of  relations  among  the  con- 
crete realities  of  the  world.  Even  the  relativity  of  this 
form  of  mental  representation  implicates  a  trans-subjective 


234  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

ground.  Moreover,  the  differentiating  function,  so  to  speak, 
of  this  trans-subjective  ground  must  be  adequate  to  the  task 
of  accounting  for  the  infinitely  great  variety  which  human 
spatial  perceptions  and  conceptions  actually  display,  in  the 
development  of  the  individual  and  of  the  race.  For,  fourth : 
Motion  is  a  most  undoubted  and  universal  fact  in  all  man's 
experience  with  things.  It  is  by  the  continuous  realization 
of  this  fact,  under  a  great  variety  of  forms  and  laws,  that 
all  physical  evolution  takes  place.  Every  form  of  physical 
science  either  resolves  itself  into  formulas  expressive  of  this 
fact,  or  else  it  is  rendered  dream-like  and  ghostly  by  the 
denial  of  the  trans -subjective  reality  of  this  fact. 

It  follows,  then,  —  to  state  the  conclusion  in  technical 
language,  —  that  neither  the  solipsistic  theory  of  space,  nor 
the  theory  which  maintains  the  merely  transcendental  ideal- 
ity of  space,  fully  satisfies  the  plain  facts  of  man's  cognitive 
experience.  On  the  contrary,  some  sort  of  a  trans-subjective 
reality  must  be  accorded  to  this  category,  conceived  of  as  an 
active  and  universal  principle  of  differentiation. 

The  enforcement  of  our  metaphysical  view  of  the  space- 
concept  may  be  effectively  secured  by  use  of  symbols  similar 
to  those  employed  in  discussing  the  category  of  time.  Let 
it  be  supposed  that  A  and  B  are  subjects  of  some  phenome- 
non of  motion  in  a  body  called  X.  Two  men,  for  example, 
are  standing  together  upon  a  street-corner  and  are  watching 
a  horse  and  wagon  driving  toward  them ;  or  two  astronomers 
are  observing  the  transit  of  the  same  planet  from  widely 
different  points  of  view.  Now,  in  the  first  case,  strictly 
speaking,  the  series  of  objective  consciousness  which  consti- 
tutes the  perception  of  motion  in  the  mind  of  A  will  not 
correspond  to  the  series  which  constitutes  the  perception  of 
motion  in  the  mind  of  B.  On  account,  however,  of  a  suffi- 
ciently close  resemblance  in  the  content  of  the  object,  Jf, 
the  perceptions  of  the  two  observers  are  of  the  same  object, 
which  is  changing  in  the  same  way  its  relations  to  them,  "in 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  235 

space."  Thus,  although  one  stream  of  consciousness  flows 
in  the  series  Al9  A«9  Az,  .  .  .  Aw  and  the  other  in  the 
series  Bi,  B~,  B3  .  .  .  Bn,  both  are  described  in  terms  of 
Xi,  X29  X3  .  .  .  Xn —  that  is,  as  the  same  changes  in  the 
space-relations  of  the  same  X  to  the  two  different  selves,  A 
and  B.  For  the  full  explanation  of  the  experience  of  the 
two  observers,  it  is  therefore  necessary  to  take  into  account, 
first  the  subjective  peculiarities  of  both  A  and  B;  these 
chiefly  explain  why  the  series  Ai9  etc.,  differs  from  the 
series  B\9  etc.  One  man  could  not  see  so  clearly  as  the 
other;  or  his  attention  and  interest  flagged;  or  the  slight 
difference  in  points  of  view  of  the  two,  differenced  their  per- 
ceptions, etc.  But,  second;  that  both  A  and  B  see  the 
object  X  "in  space"  at  all,  and  that  both  see  it  "in  mo- 
tion "  at  all,  may  be  accounted  for  by  the  vague,  a  priori 
doctrine  of  space,  which  can  simply  say :  It  is  the  nature  of 
A  and  B  so  to  do.  Still  there  remains  something  more  to 
be  accounted  for.  And,  third;  that  both  A  and  B  pass 
through  a  series  of  space-perceptions  which  admits  of  being 
•described  as  the  series  of  objective,  spatial  changes,  Xl9  XZ9 
Xs  —  Xn  cannot  be  explained  without  reference  to  the  nature 
and  activity  of  X.  That  is  to  say,  the  differentiating  func- 
tion of  a  being  which  is  neither  A  nor  B,  but  which  is  X,  must 
be  invoked  to  account  for  the  objective  series  of  space-percep- 
tions in  which  both  A  and  B  substantially  agree. 

In  the  other  case — namely,  that  of  two  astronomers  watch- 
ing the  transit  of  the  same  planet  from  two  different  points 
of  view  —  the  same  argument  holds  good  a  fortiori.  No  such 
cognitive  experience  can  be  explained  without  assuming  a 
trans-subjective  ground  for  the  variations  evoked  in  the  dif- 
ferent mental  representations  of  space.  In  this  case  the 
two  series  of  the  subjective  order  differ  in  a  much  more 
important  way  than  in  the  familiar  case  previously  consid- 
ered. The  series  Ai9  A^  A8  .  .  .  An  is  now  considered  as 
.a  mere  succession  of  perceptions  of  motion,  quite  unlike  the 


236  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

series  B±,  B^  B3  .  .  .  Bn.  To  affirm  that  both  these  men- 
tal series  are,  pbjectively  regarded,  motions  of  the  same 
planet  —  or,  in  other  words,  that  the  true  objective  series 
for  both  A  and  B  has  its  ground  in  the  same  X^  X2,  X% 
.  .  .  JTn — 'requires  a  complex  scientific  knowledge,  which 
can  only  be  made  valid  by  a  large  amount  of  previous  ex- 
pert observation  and  of  mathematical  calculation.  This  im- 
pression of  the  trans-subjective  character  of  the  observed 
transaction  (if  you  will,  of  its  perfectly  superhuman  and 
immovable  ground  in  the  reality  of  the  system  of  things)  is 
greatly  heightened  by  considering  the  success  which  the 
physical  sciences  have  in  their  calculated  predictions  re- 
garding the  future  motions  and  future  positions  of  the  ob- 
jects with  which  they  deal.  Where,  then,  shall  the  cause  for 
the  marked  differences  between  the  two  mental  series  of  the 
observers  A  and  B,  which  are  both  of  them  of  necessity  re- 
ferred to  the  same  object,  the  planet,  be  found  ?  It  is  par- 
tially, no  doubt,  in  the  difference  between  the  two  minds,  A 
and  B\  for,  as  is  well  known,  even  with  the  best  of  training 
and  the  strictest  of  attention,  no  two  observers  see  precisely 
the  same  phenomena  of  motion  when  observing  the  same 
physical  event.  But  in  this  case  such  an  explanation  is 
relatively  insignificant.  The  really  significant  and  impor- 
tant cause  of  the  difference  in  the  series  of  mental  represen- 
tations of  motion  of  the  same  object  in  space  is  found  in  a 
difference,  in  the  spatial  relations  to  this  object,  of  the  two 
different  observers. 

Now,  in  all  such  cases  as  the  foregoing,  the  metaphysics 
of  either  a  solipsistic  or  a  mystical  idealism  is  quite  futile 
to  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  understanding  for  an  explana- 
tion of  man's  experience  with  things.  Such  forms  of  ideal- 
ism cannot  even  describe  this  experience  without  internal 
and  destructive  contradictions.  That  the  grounds  for  the 
detailed  differences  in  the  space-perceptions  and  experiences 
of  men,  with  the  motion  of  external  objects  are  to  be  found 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  237 

solely  in  the  individual  subject  (are  solipsistic:  solus-ipse)  is 
an  opinion  more  absurd  and  untenable  than  the  most  crude 
and  naive  form  of  realism.  But  the  resolution  of  the  com- 
mon elements  that  analysis  detects  amid  all  these  differ- 
ences, into  a  mere  Idea  that  has  its  realization  only  in  a 
purely  human  form  of  representation,  and  so  affords  no  ex- 
planation of  the  differences  themselves,  is  an  empty  and 
barren  abstraction.  In  the  nature  of  the  realities  themselves 
must  be  placed,  in  part,  the  grounds  why  all  men  represent 
them  in  space-form,  and  yet  with  an  infinite  variety  of  differ- 
ence. Nay  more:  the  ultimate  grounds  of  the  differences 
themselves  are  to  be  found  neither  in  mental  caprice,  nor 
merely  in  the  laws  of  mental  representation.  They  are 
themselves  necessarily  conceived  of  as  trans-subjective,  as 
not  lying  solely  in  the  perceiving  and  conceiving  mind  of 
man.  In  this  its  persuasion,  the  workaday  and  the  scien- 
tific realism  of  the  multitude  of  men  is  perfectly  invincible ; 
as  invincible  as  it  is  weak  and  absurd  when  it  regards  the 
spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations  of  the  things  mentally 
represented,  as  independent  of  the  activity  of  the  mind  thus 
representing  them;  or  when  it  regards  the  mental  repre- 
sentation itself  as  a  species  of  photography,  which  repro- 
duces the  passive  and  statical  but  extra-mental  extension 
and  externality  of  things. 

The  necessity  of  making  similar  assumptions  for  the 
explanation  of  all  man's  experience  with  things  considered 
as  extended  and  movable  in  space,  is  enforced  by  a  further 
analysis  of  the  same  examples.  In  the  case  of  any  two  ob- 
servers watching  the  same  object  from  the  same  point  of 
view,  there  would  arise  not  simply  a  substantial  agreement 
in  the  series  of  perceptions  of  motion,  but  also  in  those 
changes  which  accompany  and  constitute  the  mental  repre- 
sentation of  the  size  of  objects.  Every  adult  knows,  without 
the  assistance  of  experimental  psychology,  that  the  apparent 
size  —  or  extension  in  space  —  of  objects  varies  with  their 


238  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

distance.  In  the  case  of  the  two  men  watching  the  horse 
and  wagon  approaching  them,  the  series  of  perceptions  of 
both  would  be  that  of  an  object  increasing  its  apparent  size, 
although  known  on  grounds  of  previous  experience  to  be  the 
same  object,  and  so,  of  course,  not  increasing  its  real  size. 
That  is,  the  appearance  in  the  minds  of  A  and  B  would  be 
of  jr,  X,  X,  .  .  .  X;  although  it  would  be  known  that 
each  object  in  this  series  was  actually  the  same  X.  In  the 
case,  however,  of  the  astronomers  watching  the  same  planet 
from  widely  different  points  of  view,  the  apparent  changes 
noted  would  not  involve  changes  of  size,  but  only  changes  of 
relation  to  a  number  of  other  objects  —  other  planets  and 
stars,  the  zenith,  the  horizon,  etc.  Now  these  changes, 
although  to  a  certain  extent  dependent  upon  purely  subjec- 
tive conditions,  are  nevertheless  not  to  be  accounted  for 
without  reference  to  trans-subjective  grounds. 

Man's  objective  experience  with  things,  as  having  spatial 
qualities  and  as  coming  under  spatial  relations,  is  all  of  a 
kind  similar  to  the  examples  just  given.  The  metaphysical 
account  of  this  experience,  as  an  essential  part  of  human 
knowledge,  requires,  therefore,  some  such  view  as  the  follow- 
ing :  Things  are  self -differentiating  in  their  actual  relations  to 
one  another,  —  space-wise.  They  are  not  simply  made  by  our 
form  of  mental  representation  to  be,  each  one,  for  every  other, 
another  than  itself ;  the  principle  of  differentiation  they  pos- 
sess also  in  themselves.  From  the  purely  subjective  or  psy- 
chological point  of  view,  we  can  trace  the  genesis  and  devel- 
opment of  human  spatial  perceptions  and  conceptions ;  and  this 
investigation  leads  to  the  metaphysical  conclusion :  Space  is 
in  us ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  we  perceive  and  conceive  of 
all  things  as  being  in  "  space."  But  the  study  of  the  physico- 
chemical  sciences  recalls  us  to  the  point  of  view  in  which  re- 
mains standing  the  man  of  a  naive  and  unreflecting  realism. 
This  study  compels  us  to  conclude  that,  in  some  true  meaning 
of  the  words,  after  all,  we  and  all  things  are  actually  in  space. 


SPACE   AND  MOTION 

If,  then, — as  is  admitted  —  space  is  a  human  form  of 
perceiving  and  conceiving  of  things,  yet  both  the  general 
ground  for  all  cases,  and  the  special  ground  for  every  par- 
ticular case,  of  such  perception  or  conception,  must  lie  also 
in  the  nature  of  things.  And  if,  once  more,  it  is  the  essence 
of  space  to  serve  as  a  principle  of  differentiation,  then  the 
service  of  this  principle  must  be  rendered,  so  to  speak,  both 
to  us  and  to  things  in  their  relations  to  us  and  to  one  an- 
other. The  ultimate  nature  of  man's  mental  representation 
of  things,  as  in  space-form,  must  lie  in  the  differentiating 
activity  of  a  Being  that  shall  have  control  over  man's  mental 
representations  and  also  over  the  actual  being  of  things. 

That  our  metaphysical  doctrine  of  space,  as  thus  far  de- 
veloped, satisfies  the  demands  made  by  the  physical  and 
natural  sciences  in  order  to  render  their  conceptions  and  dis- 
coveries valid  for  reality,  becomes  clear  when  it  is  consid- 
ered how  these  sciences  treat  both  the  relativity  and  the 
actuality  of  Motion  in  Space.  The  tendency  of  the  most 
clear-sighted  modern  physics  is  to  base  all  its  abstract  con- 
ceptions, principles,  and  demonstrations,  upon  observed  facts 
of  motion.  We  have  already  seen  that  this  is  what  psychol- 
ogy indicates  as  the  valid  order  of  procedure  and  of  life. 
The  child  actually  begins  his  observations  and  his  general- 
izations where  the  expert  student  of  physics  should  begin. 
Both  are  warranted  in  beginning  with  facts  of  motion.  This 
is  the  patent  and  the  impressive  thing  in  the  world  of  spa- 
tial objects,  —  self,  other  selves,  and  things,  —  they  are  all 
moving.  But  movement  as  a  datum  of  experience  implies 
extension  limited  so  as  to  give  unity  to  the  separate  things, 
their  relations,  and  their  change,  —  "in  space."  Unity, 
relation,  and  change,  are  all  implicit  in  every  perception 
and  conception  of  motion.  When,  for  example,  X  moves 

from  a  to  5,  along  the  line  a &,  it  is  necessarily  considered 

as  the  same  definitely  limited  X,  which,  beginning  with  a 
relation  to  the  points  a  and  b  that  implies  coincidence  with 


240  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

one  (a)  and  that  also  means  distance  in  a  given  direction 
from  the  other  (£),  then  proceeds  to  alter  this  relation.  After 
X  has  moved,  it  is  coincident  with  the  point  b  and  related 
to  the  point  a  as  it  formerly  was  to  the  point  b.  All  this 
truth,  we  are  wont  to  say,  is  implied  in  the  perception  or 
conception  of  motion.  But  only  a  very  small  part  of  all 
this  is  to  be  found  explicit  in  the  sensational  flow  of  the 
stream  of  consciousness.  For  our  sense-consciousness  as- 
sures us,  at  most,  only  of  a  change  in  the  content  and  local- 
ization of  certain  sensation -complexes,  which  have  a  sort  of 
serial  relation  in  time  and  a  sufficient  similarity  in  content 
to  make  them  stand  for  the  same  X. 

That  a  series  of  sensation-complexes  of  motion  may  be 
produced  otherwise  than  by  actually  moving  X  from  a  to  b, 
—  as,  for  example,  by  a  skilful  and  rapid  combination  of  the 
successive  retinal  images,  or  by  successive  stimulations  of 
the  same  parts  of  the  retina  with  objects  that  have  different 
sensuous  qualities  —  students  of  the  physico-chemical  sci- 
ences as  well  as  students  of  psychology,  know  to  be  true. 
They  know  also  perfectly  well  that  all  their  theory  of  kine- 
matics, or  phoronomics,  as  well  as  of  statics,  is  a  theory  of 
relations.  No  body  can  be  placed  anywhere  in  space,  with- 
out defining  its  relations  to  some  one  or  more  other  bodies 
in  space.  And  there  is  no  actual  movement,  either  to  be 
observed  or  to  be  calculated,  which  must  not  have  its  direc- 
tion and  velocity  considered  as  related  to  some  other  moving 
or  stationary  body.  Indeed,  there  is  no  actual  known  mo- 
tion which  is  not  relative  to  a  standing  still ;  and  there  is  no 
actual  standing  still  which  is  not  relative  to  a  possible  mo- 
tion. So  that  "  absolute  "  motion  and  "  absolute  "  rest  are 
alike  impossible ;  or,  at  least,  they  are  never  actual  in  this 
world  of  things,  as  it  is  given  to  our  minds  to  observe  and  to 
know  it.  When,  therefore,  physics  makes  use  of  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  "  apparent  "  and  the  "  real "  motion  of  any 
body,  it  is  not  meant  to  assert  that  the  real  motion  is  any 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  241 

less  relative  than  is  the  so-called  apparent  motion  of  the 
same  body.  Without  some  standard  of  comparison  to  which 
a  moving  body  may  be  brought,  its  real  motion  could  never 
be  made  apparent ;  and  the  apparent  motion,  so  far  as  physi- 
cal science  does  not  deal  with  illusions  and  hallucinations, 
is  precisely  as  real,  quoad  motion,  as  it  is  possible  for  any 
motion  to  be.  For  purposes  of  theory  or  of  the  application 
of  known  laws,  we  may  put  ourselves  by  imagination  into 
ideal  points  of  view,  and  then  inquire  how  the  movements, 
if  actually  taking  place,  would  appear  to  an  observer  from 
these  points  of  view.  This  is  what  the  Copernican  theory  did 
when  it  described  the  so-called  "real'*  movements  of  the 
earth  around  the  sun.  But  in  all  its  process  of  investiga- 
tion, in  its  discovery  and  application  of  the  laws  of  motion, 
and  even  of  those  facts  of  motion  which  have  not  yet  sub- 
mitted to  generalizations  in  the  form  of  "laws,"  the  science 
of  physics  believes  in  the  trans-subjective  reality  of  motion. 
In  this  it  is  exercising  its  legitimate  right.  But  it  does 
not  belong  to  physical  science  to  tell  us  what  it  is  really  to 
move  in  space;  or  to  speculate  as  to  what  is  the  real  and 
ultimate  nature  of  that  space  "  in  which  "  all  physical  bodies 
have  their  existence  and  their  motion.  This,  however,  is 
precisely  the  problem  which  metaphysics  attempts. 

Upon  this  firmly  established  assumption  that  all  move- 
ment of  physical  objects,  although  relative  and  measurable 
only  by  reference  to  points  of  comparison,  is  nevertheless  a 
transaction  in  reality,  the  physical  sciences  build  their  com- 
plicated systems  of  theory,  law,  and  generalized  facts  of 
experience.  The  fulfilment  of  the  expectations  which  their 
conclusions  excite,  and  of  the  predictions  which  they  make, 
constitutes  an  ever  accumulating  mass  of  evidence  in  favor  of 
the  truth  of  this  fundamental  assumption.  So  far  have  they 
now  gone  in  extending  man's  knowledge  of  that  system  of 
things,  and  of  their  changes  in  magnitude,  number,  and 
position,  in  the  midst  of  which  is  his  life  and  development, 

16 


242  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

that  the  main  features  of  the  picture  may  be  regarded  asr 
complete.  It  is  the  picture  of  an  infinite  variety  of  be- 
ings, numerable  and  measurable,  but  constantly  undergoing, 
changes  in  the  position  they  occupy  with  reference  to  others 
in  the  same  system.  And  as  this  picture  becomes  more  and 
more  subjected  to  the  test  of  man's  enlarging  cognitive  ex- 
perience, it  becomes  more  and  more  detailed  and  serviceable 
for  purposes  both  of  explanation  and  of  forecast;  but  it  is 
altered  in  no  one  of  its  essential  characteristics.  No  being1 
becomes  known,  no  object  is  perceived  or  conceived  of,  that 
is  not  also  numerable,  measurable,  and  movable,  within  this 
system.  Indeed,  the  growth  of  the  physical  sciences  in  ex- 
actness of  theory,  and  in  strictness  of  application,  is  a  growth 
in  power  to  number  and  to  measure  the  internal  and  the  ex- 
ternally related  movements  of  the  beings  constituting  this 
system.  This  growth  —  that  is  to  say  —  all  assumes,  and  it. 
more  and  more  convincingly  proves,  both  the  relativity  and 
the  trans-subjective  reality  of  those  principles  which  make: 
possible  such  forms  of  dealing  with  the  facts  of  motion. 
And  among  these  principles  is,  in  some  sort,  pre-eminent, 
the  real  existence  and  the  qualities  of  space. 

The  objective  validity  and  the  practical  applicability  of 
the  molecular  and  the  chemical  sciences  involves  the  same 
implication  as  to  the  Nature  of  Reality.  In  part,  these  in- 
ternal movements  are  such  differentiations  as  can  be  made 
objects  of  knowledge  by  perception,  through  improved  in- 
strumentation ;  and,  in  part,  they  are  movements  which  are 
inferred  or  imagined  in  order  to  explain  observed  changes. 
But  they  constitute  a  growing  body  of  scientific  generaliza- 
tions which  is  more  and  more  conquering  the  most  mysteri- 
ous fields  of  phenomena:  while  at  the  same  time,  it  does  not 
destroy  or  alter  in  the  least  the  point  of  view  which  episte- 
mology  and  metaphysics  must  assume  for  their  theoretical 
determinations  of  the  nature  of  reality.  For  example,  let 
the  microscopist  watch  the  motions  of  an  amoeba  as  it 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  243 

changes  its  place  in  its  surrounding  medium,  while  at  the 
same  time  changing  its  own  contour  in  those  ways  so  charac- 
teristic and  as  yet  essentially  mysterious.  Here  is  an  ob- 
ject: A,  which  while  it  moves  from  n  to  z,  along  a  course 
that  can  be  defined  by  no  known  combination  of  laws  inde- 
pendently of  its  own  "will,"  is  the  subject  of  internal  mo- 
lecular changes  that,  up  to  the  present  date,  bear  the  same 
unexplained  character.  The  total  phenomenon  observed  is 
thus  described :  —  A9  moving  from  n  to  z  through  indetermi- 
nate points,  such  as  o,  p  .  .  .  x,  y,  while  at  the  same  time 
changing  itself  from  An  to  Az  in  shape,  in  an  equally  inde- 
terminate manner.  Or  let  the  example  be  taken  from  the 
modern  scientific  account  of  the  growth  of  some  living  cell. 
How  marvellous  the  description  which  biology  now  affords 
of  the  movements  which  go  on  within  the  cell,  and  toward 
the  cell  from  its  surrounding  pabulum;  and  which  finally 
result  in  the  evolution  of  a  complex  living  organism  —  no 
less  significant  than  the  body  of  some  human  being !  Here, 
with  an  infinite  complexity  of  motion,  on  the  part  of  an  in- 
definitely great  number  of  elements  originally  entirely  sep- 
arate, —  in  water,  air,  plants,  animals,  —  C  changes  itself 
through  a  planful  series,  into  something  unrecognizably 
different.  By  laying  hold  of  these  elements  —  a,  5,  <?,  d  to 
2?,  and  even  almost  to  oo,  and  by  drawing  them  into  itself ; 
by  actively  rearranging  them,  and  then  dividing  itself  into 
C'  and  C"  ;  and  by  proliferation  and  segregation  and  aggre- 
gation, etc.,  of  cells,  — all  forms  of  molecular  movements, — 
the  original  C  succeeds  in  becoming  the  system  of  organs 
known  as  B  (a  human  body).  Or,  again,  let  the  example  be 
taken  from  the  inferred  and  imagined  atomic  movements 
which  modern  chemistry  needs  in  order  to  explain  its  ob- 
served phenomena.  Let  us  suppose  we  have  the  series  of 
hydrocarbons  —  Methane,  CH4,  Ethane,  C2H6.  Propane,  C3H8 
to  deal  with ;  and  that  we  are  required  to  make  clear  to  our- 
selves what  changes  in  the  molecules  are  necessary  in  order 


244  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

to  render  such  a  series  possible.  Only  if  one  is  at  liberty  to 
suppose  that  intramolecular  movements  of  the  atoms,  re- 
sulting in  new  arrangements  of  position,  take  place,  can  one 
give  any  intelligible  account  of  such  a  series. 

Here  again,  however,  there  is  as  little  need  to  multiply 
examples  as  in  the  case  of  the  physics  of  masses  whose 
movements  may  be  made  visible  and  tangible  to  the  un- 
trained observer.  The  one  fact  which  the  physico-chemical 
sciences  find  everywhere  is  the  fact  of  motion.  The  most 
far-reaching  telescope  reveals  this  fact;  the  most  penetrat- 
ing microscope  emphasizes  the  same  fact.  The  heavenly 
bodies,  however  remote  and  unlike  our  own  earth,  are  con- 
stantly changing  their  relations  to  one  another  in  infinite 
space;  the  atoms  are  doing  the  same  thing  within  the  in- 
definitely small  spaces  to  which  the  laws  of  their  relations 
confine  their  activities.  All  things  and  all  elements  of  .all 
things  are  ceaselessly  on  the  move ;  —  that  is,  they  are  hold- 
ing a  certain  individual  oneness  and  "otherness,"  and  are 
undergoing  continuous  changes  of  relation,  in  accordance 
with  the  terms  set  to  them  by  the  differentiating  principle 
of  space. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  again  to  criticize  and  to  expose 
the  essential  unsatisfactoriness  of  either  a  crudely  realistic, 
or  a  shallow  and  flippant  idealistic  metaphysics  in  its  atti- 
tude toward  the  assumptions  and  discoveries  of  the  modern 
physical  sciences.  Nor  is  there  need  to  remind  the  more 
intelligent  students  of  these  sciences  that,  in  their  scientific 
language  and  forms  of  pictorial  representation,  they  are  not 
penetrating  to  the  heart  of  reality.  Of  course,  the  sensuous 
picture  which  the  individual  observer  frames,  whether  of 
the  position,  the  motion,  or  the  spatial  qualities  of  things, 
is  not  a  copy  of  what  exists,  —  "  in  itself  "  just  like  this  pic- 
ture, and  entirely  independent  of  the  observer.  Just  as 
little  need  is  there  to  insist  that  the  entire  science  of  spatial 
properties  and  of  changes  in  space  is  relative;  that  all  its 


SPACE   AND   MOTIOX  245 

measurements,  formulas,  and  laws  have  reference  only  to 
objects  which  must  always  be  considered  with  reference  to 
one  another.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  metaphysical  dialec- 
tic will  not  easily  convince  the  thoughtful  student  of  the 
physical  sciences  that  phenomena  of  motion,  and  the  laws 
governing  spatial  properties  and  spatial  relations  of  physical 
objects  which  have  been  built  up  through  so  many  centuries 
on  a  basis  of  these  phenomena,  are  without  trans-subjective 
ground  or  significance  as  touching  the  nature  of  Reality. 
Neither  the  flippant  subjectivism  which  compares  Space  to 
a  "  product  of  evolution  "  (of  evolution  that  is  not  itself  "  in 
space  "  ?)  nor  the  solemn,  critical  but  agnostic  Idealism  of 
Kant,  will  render  the  student  of  science  easy  in  his  mind, 
if  once  he  betakes  himself  to  metaphysics.  For  he,  as  well 
as  the  "plain  man,"  feels  irresistibly  that  man's  cognitive 
experience,  as  a  race,  is  such  as  to  demand  that  the  known 
system  of  different  things  carry  within  itself  the  principle 
that  can  account  for  both  its  unity  and  its  differences.  The 
essential  Being  of  the  System  must  be  conceived  of  as  a 
Unity  that  can  realize  itself  in  an  infinite  number  of  beings, 
differentiated  actually  each  from  every  other. 

This  conviction  of  the  positive  sciences  reminds  us  that 
the  unifying  function  of  the  category  of  space  is  not  less 
obvious  or  essential  than  its  differentiating  function.  Such, 
from  the  subjective  point  of  view,  is  the  valid  conclusion  of 
psychology  and  of  an  idealistic  metaphysics.  No  external 
object  (and  here  the  word  "  external "  includes  the  most  in- 
terior parts  of  one's  own  body)  can  be  known  or  imagined 
that  is  not  brought  under  the  unity  of  this  one  principle. 
Spatially  considered,  the  world  is  one.  Every  particular 
thing  becomes  a  known  or  an  imagined  part  of  this  one 
World,  only  as  it  enters  into  relations  with  other  particular 
things,  in  the  unity  of  this  one  space.  The  mental  act  of 
representation  is  always  a  unifying  act ;  it  is  an  actual  syn- 
thesis. Regarded  also  as  a  universal  mental  form  of  the 


246  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

human  mind,  this  category  is  a  unifying  function.  By  vir- 
tue of  my  representing  all  objects  of  experience  in  this  way, 
common  to  me  with  all  men,  I  am  made  one  with  the  race. 
I  can  thus  give  and  receive  knowledge  about  things,  —  their 
size,  shape,  position,  and  movements,  whether  external  or 
internal  to  the  things  themselves.  I  can  thus  both  learn 
and  teach  a  doctrine  of  the  world  of  things,  which  shall 
have  that  formal  unity  and  that  practical  value  in  enabling 
us  to  interpret  and  predict,  which  are  essential  to  the  very 
nature  of  science. 

Moreover  —  as  has  been  implied  in  the  last  sentences  of 
the  preceding  paragraph  —  the  actual  operation  of  the  cate- 
gory of  space  in  the  world  of  real  things  is  to  exhibit  them, 
as  different  and  manifoldly  situated  and  related,  yet  in  the 
unity  of  a  single  system.  In  order  to  effect  this  actual  uni- 
fication, space  must  be  regarded  as  something  other  than  a 
mere  conception,  or  a  mere  form  of  human  mental  represen- 
tation. The  significance  of  this  demand  has  already  been 
partially  indicated  by  calling  attention  to  the  fact  that  men 
speak  of  Space  as  though  it  were  an  active  principle;  they 
conceive  of  it  after  the  analogy  of  a  doer,  or  an  agent.  But 
whatever  they  may  mean  by  regarding  all  things  as  really 
being  "in  space,"  the  phrase  takes  note  of  their  unity  under 
this  conception,  as  truly  as  of  their  differentiation.  You 
and  I  are  made  "other"  to  each  other  by  this  principle;  but 
you  and  I  are  made  "  one "  with  each  other,  and  with  all 
other  things,  by  the  same  principle.  Were  it  not  for  the 
actual  unifying  effect  of  this  principle,  men  could  not  live 
in  one  world,  —  separate  beings,  and  yet  having  commerce 
with  one  another  and  with  the  same  or  with  different  things. 
For  me,  indeed,  "here"  means  one  position  in  space;  and 
for  you,  "here  "  means  another  and  different  position.  And 
yet  we  may  point  out  to  each  other  the  same  thing  as  in  the 
same  "  there  " ;  we  may  meet  each  other  here,  in  the  same 
city ;  or  we  may  part  from  the  same  home  to  go  yonder,  in 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  247 

different  directions.  It  is  the  category  of  Space  as  truly  as 
.the  categories  of  Time  and  of  Force,  that  renders  all  the 
myriad  beings  of  human  cognitive  experience  kindred  within 
one  World. 

This  is  perhaps  the  fittest  connection  in  which  briefly  to 
notice  certain  problems  connected  with  the  criticism  of  the 
category  of  space.  Some  of  these  problems  have  quite  un- 
warrantably increased  the  current  stock  of  metaphysical 
puzzles.  One  of  them  concerns  the  so-called  "infinity  of 
.space. "  By  this  phrase  it  cannot  properly  be  meant  to  ask, 
whether  the  mind  of  man  can  get  by  perception,  or  give  to 
itself  by  imagination,  either  the  empty  or  the  filled-up  picture 
of  a  world  of  things  that  has  absolutely  no  limits  to  its  exten- 
sion ;  nor  to  inquire,  whether  we  cannot  somehow  divest  our- 
selves of  all  obligation  to  this  category  and  so  imagine,  or 
think  about  a  world  of  things  that  shall  exist  —  many  things 
in  one  world  —  without  being  "  in  space  "  at  all.  The  true 
state  of  the  case  is  as  follows :  Subjectively  regarded,  the 
infinity  of  space  is  provided  for,  when  it  has  once  for  all 
been  recognized  that  space  is  the  universal  and  necessary 
mode  of  the  human  mental  representation  of  a  system  of 
things,  so  differentiated  as  to  be,  one  and  another,  external 
to  each.  Objectively  regarded,  the  infinity  of  space  is 
affirmed  when  it  is  recognized  that,  without  limit  or  excep- 
tion (in-finis\  all  objects  constituting  this  system  of  per- 
ceived and  conceivable  things  exist  in  accordance  with  this 
principle.  Thus,  as  a  pictorial  representation,  I  cannot 
know  the  infinity  of  space.  As  a  conceptual  form  of  dif- 
ferentiating the  particular  objects  in  the  unity  of  the  one 
system,  I  cannot  fail  to  know  the  infinity  of  space. 

In  somewhat  the  same  way  must  we  solve  the  puzzle  as  to 
the  "  infinite  divisibility  "  of  space.  The  mind  cannot  actu- 
ally perceive,  or  even  picture,  as  going  on  without  limit, 
the  process  of  differentiating  the  particular  beings  of  the 
"world  in  respect  to  their  spatial  qualities  and  spatial  rela- 


248  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

tions.  Neither  can  we  mentally  represent  any  particular 
being  which  shall  realize  this  infinite  divisibility  as  though 
it  were  already  accomplished.  I  can,  indeed,  by  a  process 
of  abstraction,  think  and  reason  about  relations  of  position, 
merely  as  such.  And  this  is  done  by  every  mind,  whenever  the 
fundamental  postulate  of  geometry  is  apprehended :  "  Between 
any  two  points,  anywhere  situated  in  space,  one,  and  only  one, 
straight  line  can  be  drawn. "  On  the  other  hand,  the  char- 
acter of  space  (and  this  means  here  the  pure  form  of  every 
mental  representation  of  things),  of  itself,  affords  no  reason 
why  the  process  of  dividing,  and  so  of  externalizing  to  one 
another,  the  parts  of  any  thing,  should  ever  come  to  an  end. 
But  this  does  not  constitute,  as  Kant  held,  an  antinomy 
which  so  affects  the  very  nature  of  the  category  of  space  as 
to  destroy  all  applicability  of  it  to  trans-subjective  realities. 
This  very  antinomy,  the  rather,  shows  that  space  is  a  prin- 
ciple, both  of  differentiating  and  of  unifying;  and  that  any 
limit  to  the  actual  differentiation  of  things  must  come  from 
some  other  characteristic  (or  motif)  in  Reality,  than  that 
representable  under  space-form.  Who  shall  say,  a  priori 
and  in  the  name  of  Space,  how  fine  or  how  coarse  God  shall 
decide  that  things  and  their  elements  are,  in  fact,  to  be  ? 

Once  more,  it  confirms  further  our  view  of  the  real  nature 
of  space  to  reflect  critically  upon  the  discussion,  by  mathe- 
maticians and  physicists,  of  space  of  more  than  three  —  of 
four,  or  of  n  dimensions.  That  all  men's  pictorial  represen- 
tations of  spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations  are  actually 
three-dimensioned  there  can  be  no  dispute  and  no  doubt. 
Moreover,  if  we  disregard  certain  alleged  occult  phenomena, 
which  can  scarcely  yet  lay  claim  to  acceptance  as  facts,  the 
conception  of  "three-dimensioned  space"  will  serve  to  ex- 
plain all  the  facts  of  human  experience  with  the  external 
world.  It  is  three-dimensioned  space  which  all  the  applied 
sciences  of  physical  objects  both  assume  and  also  verify  by 
their  discoveries  and  their  predictions.  On  the  other  hand, 


SPACE   AND  MOTION  249 

these  sciences  cannot  deny  a  priori  that  Reality  might  differ- 
entiate, and  still  unify,  its  innumerable  particular  beings  and 
elements,  after  a  manner  analogous  to  that  which  furnishes 
the  ground  for  our  mental  representations  of  things  in  space, 
and  yet  in  a  more  complex  and  varied  way  (a  "fourth,"  or 
more,  up  to  an  nth  dimension).  If  we  should  finally  dis- 
cover facts  of  knowledge  which  required  the  assumption  of 
"  w-dimensioned  "  space,  we  might  make  it  as  a  permissible 
hypothesis  or  even  a  valid  theory;  but  this  would  not,  of 
itself,  in  the  least  degree  affect  our  present  three-dimen- 
sioned form  of  mental  representation ;  and  as  little  would  it 
justify  us  in  changing  the  metaphysics  of  the  category  of 
space. 

The  ontological  doctrine  which  is  demanded  by  the  facts 
of  experience  and  by  the  conclusions  of  the  positive  sciences, 
may  be  summed  up  as  follows :  There  belongs  to  the  Being 
of  the  World  a  principle  which  actually  differentiates  this 
Being  into  a  vast  number  of  particular  beings;  and  these 
particular  beings  are  co-existent  in  time,  and  yet  "  external  n 
each  to  every  other ;  but  the  same  principle,  at  the  same  time, 
unites  all  these  beings  in  a  system  of  reciprocally  deter- 
mined changes  of  relations  to  one  another.  This  principle 
both  assigns,  at  every  moment  of  time,  the  place  which  each 
being  assumes  for  itself  within  the  one  system ;  and  it  also 
admits  of  a  series  of  changes  in  the  relations  pertaining  to 
such  assignment.  This  same  principle  is  also  the  ground  of 
man's  perceptions  and  conceptions  of  the  spatial  qualities 
and  spatial  relations  of  things.  It  is  the  trans -subjective 
cause  of  our  mental  representation  of  ourselves,  and  of  all 
that  is  "  other  "  to  us,  —  both  other  selves,  and  other  things 
—  as  in  a  space-system.  From  this  it  follows  that,  as  a 
principle,  it  cannot  possibly  be  wholly  alien  to  us,  who  are 
the  both  active  and  passive  subjects  of  this  particular  form 
of  mental  representation.  Besides,  the  genesis  and  develop- 
ment of  our  space-perceptions  and  conceptions  can  be  traced 


250  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

in  the  history  of  the  mind-life.  For  us,  and  for  all  men, 
this  principle  is  a  category;  it  is  one  of  those  universal  and 
•necessary  forms  of  cognitive  experience  which  act,  on  the 
one  hand,  as  binding  laws  of  the  subjective  development, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  indicate  a  grasp  of  the  mind  of  man 
upon  the  nature  of  reality. 

Combining  the  results  of  this  discussion  of  the  category 
of  Space  with  those  reached  by  discussing  the  category  of 
Time,  the  symbolism  already  adopted  may  be  expanded  as 
follows:  —  Let  the  Being  of  the  World,  as  respects  its  infin- 
ite content,  =  oo .  Then  the  Being  of  the  World  in  Time 
may  be  represented  by  the  series  oo  i,  oc  2,  oo  3,  etc.,  — through 
unending  time,  to  oo  „.  But  the  Being  of  the  World  in  Space 
provides  that  each  "  moment "  in  the  series  of  oo  shall  in- 
clude a  systematic  ordering  of  the  particular  beings  in  such 
manner  as  to  secure  their  "otherness,"  for  all  purposes  of 
physical  and  social  intercourse,  yet  within  the  unity  of  a 
.single  system.  It  provides  that  oo  i  shall  be,  and  shall  be 
known  as  being,  =  (al9  bly  <?i,  dl9  e^  /i,  .  .  .  Wi) ;  oo,  «=  (a2, 
^2,  £2>  ^2?  «2,  /a,  .  .  .  n2),  etc.  ;  —  in  accordance  with  the 
.particular  being  of  a,  and  of  all  the  other  interdependently 
.related  beings,  and  with  the  nature  of  the  "laws  that  govern  " 
.the  changes  of  all  their  spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations. 
This  was  seen  to  mean  that  the  Being  of  the  World  is  a  Life, 
said  to  be  in  time  because  it  is  a  series  of  states,  each  hav- 
ing an  infinitely  rich  content  belonging  to  it. 

But  what,  as  bearing   upon,  and  as  contributing  to,  our 
Theory  of  Reality  is  the  meaning  of  this  symbolical  way  of 
^conceiving   of  the  category  of  Space?  .  .  .  The  answer  to 
this  question  can  only  be  partially  indicated  at  present;  no 
answer  can  ever  be  so  satisfactory  for  the  category  of  space 
as  for  the  kindred  category  of  time.     But  it  may  well  be 
noted  that  the  discussion  of  the  space -concept,  as  related  to 
all  of  man's  experience,  cannot  avoid  introducing  other  con- 
cepts —  such  as  change,  relation,  and  especially  all  those 


SPACE  AND  MOTION  251 

involved  in  the  distinction  of  Self  from  other  selves  and 
from  things.  One  conception,  however,  seems  to  be  most 
essentially  involved  in  all  attempts  to  answer  the  inquiry : 
What  is  it  really  to  be  "in  space  ?  "  This  is  the  conception 
of  Force.  Unless  the  world  of  concrete  realities  were  a  sys- 
tem of  beings,  with  force  in  them  —  as  we  may  say  in  a  fig- 
urative way  —  no  real  existence  in  space  could  be,  or  could 
be  known.  Two  considerations  may  for  the  present  suffice 
to  establish  this  contention.  First:  it  is  a  common  but  ex- 
ceedingly significant  phrase,  to  speak  of  all  real  things,  as 
"  occupying  "  a  definable  and  measurable  amount  of  space. 
One  may  not  convert  into  each  other  offhand  the  two 
phrases  —  "really  to  be  in  space"  and  "to  occupy  space." 
But  both  theoretically  and  practically,  there  is  no  real  exis- 
tence in  space  which  does  not  occupy  that  same  space.  To 
be  actually  posited  or  extended,  spatially,  a  thing  must  seize 
and  hold  a  certain  definite  position  and  extension.  This  it 
cannot  do  unless  it  be,  somehow,  possessed  of  the  required 
forces.  But  second :  if  we  examine  anew  the  experience  in 
which  our  space-concept  is  obtained  and  developed,  and,  by 
building  on  the  truthfulness  of  which,  the  physical  sciences 
rear  and  solidify  their  wonderful  structures,  we  discover  the 
same  significant  thought.  The  ultimate  subjective  fact  is 
the  perception,  and  then  the  conception,  of  Motion.  The 
ultimate  need  to  be  satisfied  by  the  category  of  space  is 
the  effecting  of  those  regular  and  lawful  performances  in 
the  World-system  which  science  observes  and  conceives  of 
as  motions,  trans-subjectively  initiated  and  controlled.  Mo- 
tion, however,  is  not  something  that  can  be  defined  or  ac- 
counted for  in  terms  of  space  merely.  To  illustrate  this, 
suppose  that  the  popular  definition  be  accepted:  Motion  = 
"change  of  place."  At  once  the  question  must  be  raised: 
Is  this  a  change  that  is  already  accomplished,  or  a  change  that 
is  in  the  process  of  accomplishment  ?  The  answer  must  be : 
All  actual  motion  is  rather  something  changing  its  position, 


252  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

or  its  relation  in  space  to  other  things.  Hence  real  motion 
—  something  moving;  or  motion  =  motion.  But  this  fact  of 
motion,  which  cannot  even  be  defined  in  terms  of  space, 
when  space  is  regarded  as  some  mere  thought-form  or  pas- 
sive framework  of  a  world  of  active  Reality  (so-called 
"pure  space"),  is,  as  we  shall  see  later,  intelligible  only  as 
it  implicates  force. 

No  actualization  of  the  space-principle  is,  therefore,  pos- 
sible, either  from  the  point  of  view  of  its  subjective  origin 
or  of  its  trans-subjective  applicability,  unless  this  principle 
itself  is  conceived  of  as  the  mode  of  the  action  of  one  all-dif- 
ferentiating and  yet  all-unifying  Force.  And  surely  here  we 
have  come  close  to  the  very  heart  of  our  conception  of  Self- 
hood, as  giving  us  the  essence  of  the  Being  and  the  Life  of 
the  World.  The  category  of  space  must  be  referred  for  its 
trans-subjective  ground  to  a  World-Force,  that  arranges  in 
a  determinate  way  all  the  different  beings  of  the  world,  in- 
cluding each  Self  whose  pictorial  representation  of  the  spa- 
tial qualities  and  spatial  relations  of  things  is  determined 
by  this  same  Force.  As  a  mental  representation  in  us  and 
in  all  men,  its  actuality  implicates  an  orderly  functioning, 
both  to  differentiate  and  to  unite,  of  a  Being  that  is  not  our- 
selves, and  yet  that  includes  our  Self  and  all  not-selves  in 
the  one  system.  Space  is  not  simply  our  human  form  of 
mental  representation;  it  is  really  the  correlated  form  of 
the  functioning  of  this  World-Force.  Further  information 
as  to  the  nature  of  this  correlate  cannot  be  obtained  from 
an  analysis  merely  of  our  space-consciousness  and  of  its 
implicates. 


CHAPTER  X 

FORCE  AND  CAUSATION 

THE  different  conceptions  thus  far  subjected  to  critical  ex- 
amination have  all  been  sucli  as  seem  to  admit  of  some  kind 
of  inductive  proof  by  reference  to  our  sensuous  experience 
with  things.  All  the  qualities  which  the  concrete  realities  of 
the  world  possess  are  either  immediately  knowable,  or  are 
capable  of  being  imagined,  in  terms  of  sense-perception. 
Changes,  too,  are  perceived  by  eye  and  hand  and  ear,  and  even 
by  the  less  discriminating  and  objective  of  the  senses.  Al- 
though to  relate  is  the  constructive  act  of  the  intellect,  and 
being  related  may  be  said,  from  the  subjective  point  of  view, 
to  be  imposed  upon  things  by  man's  intellectual  activity,  yet 
the  necessary  conjunction  of  this  activity  with  all  the  passive 
aspects  of  human  sense-consciousness  makes  it  proper  to 
speak  as  though  the  mind  became  "  immediately  aware  "  of 
the  relations  that  actually  exist  amongst  things.  Space  and 
time,  too,  seem  to  furnish  forms  and  laws,  conformity  and 
obedience  to  which  are  enforced  by  all  our  sensuous  acquaint- 
ance with  the  World  of  real  existences.  In  some  sort,  there- 
fore, Becoming  and  Change,  Quality,  Relation,  Time,  Space 
and  Motion,  may  be  said  to  be  the  more  obvious  and  sen- 
suously apparent  of  the  categories. 

But  we  can  no  longer  suppress  a  momentous  truth  which 
has  been  slumbering  just  below  the  surface  of  all  these  more 
superficial  of  the  categories.  Indeed,  this  truth  has  seemed 
to  arouse  itself  and  lift  up  its  head,  at  intervals,  during  all 
our  previous  discussion  of  the  categories.  Each  one  of  them 


254  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

has  given  token  of  the  intimate  presence  of  a  yet  more  spirit- 
ual and  profoundly  influential  conception.  For  example,  it 
was  found  that  qualities  are  neither  known  nor  conceivable 
apart  from  something  that  is  said  to  "  have,"  or  to  "  exercise," 
the  qualities  ;  and  this  vague  "  something,"  when  questioned 
gave  back  an  unmistakable  echo  of  a  conception  of  force  in  re- 
serve, as  it  were,  within  the  very  depths  of  each  particular 
being.  Again,  when  becoming  and  the  various  forms  of 
change  were  considered,  it  appeared  that  some  active  prin- 
ciple must  always  control  the  becoming,  and  thus  account  for 
the  origin  and  the  character  of  every  particular  change.  This 
principle  of  a  control  of  change  hints  at  the  same  conception 
of  force.  Relations;  to  be  sure,  sometimes  seem  so  calm,  sta- 
tical, and  impassive,  that  they,  at  least,  would  not  suffer  if  all 
forms  of  the  manifestation  of  force  were  removed  from  the 
world.  'But  at  once  we  are  reminded  that  the  mental  act  of 
establishing  relations,  whether  by  observation  or  by  argument, 
is  about  the  most  energetic  thing  which  a  human  will  can  ac- 
complish. Forceful,  pre-eminent,  is  the  mind  that  seizes  and 
works  out  the  most  complex  and  subtle  relations  amongst  the 
"  stuffs  "  of  its  sensuous  experience.  And  some  objective  re- 
lations unmistakably  demand  force  for  their  establishment 
and  their  continuance  or  change.  Such  are  all  relations,  for 
example,  of  tension,  strain,  attraction,  repulsion,  suspension, 
etc.,  in  physics  ;  and  all  the  ideal  relations  of  cause  and  effect, 
means  and  end,  etc.  Moreover,  since  no  actual  relations  are 
perfectly  statical  and  unchanging,  the  presence  of  force  must 
be  recognized  in  the  midst  of  them  all.  Finally,  the  con- 
ception of  a  differentiating  and  unifying  force  seemed  neces- 
.sary  in  order  to  complete  the  actualization  of  the  categories  of 
time  and  space. 

All  this  —  to  speak  figuratively  —  may  be  said  to  amount  to 
this  important  truth :  a  dynamical  view  must  be  substituted  for 
a  merely  statical  view  of  the  Being  of  Reality.  Or  rather,  all 
the  universal  and  necessary  forms  under  which  man  knows. 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  255 

the  World  show  but  the  surface  of  its  nature  until  he  re- 
cognizes the  truth:  The  Being  of  the  World  is  a  Unity  of 
Force. 

Now  we  are  by  no  means  ready  to  identify  all  that  is  know- 
able  with  the  abstract  conception  of  a  oneness  of  force.  This 
would  be  substantially  to  repeat  the  ontology  of  Mr.  Spencer, 
however  much  the  particular  terms  were  varied  in  which  the 
conception  was  elaborated.  Nor  are  we  satisfied  to  employ 
Schopenhauer's  much  more  intelligible  term,  and  thus  leap  at, 
one  bound  (with  no  attempt  at  discussion  of  the  steps  in  the 
argument,  but  with  scores  of  interesting,  though  partly  irre- 
levant illustrations)  to  the  conclusion :  the  all-inclusive 
Reality  =  a  Unity  of  Will.  Besides,  as  to  the  nature  of 
that  unity  which  metaphysical  system  must  effect  amongst  the 
indefinite  variety  of  forces  (the  almost  infinite  number  of 
wills)  actually  known  to  man,  there  is  needed  detailed  critical 
inquiry.  It  is  in  place  to  notice,  however,  that  some  concep- 
tion of  Force  pervades  all  cognitive  experience,  and  to  inquire 
critically  into  the  genesis,  development,  objective  application 
and  significance  in  the  physical  and  chemical  sciences,  of  this 
conception,  and  into  its  ontological  import  and  validity.  For 
the  truth  is  beyond  all  controversy  that  no  semblance  of  a 
satisfactory  theory  of  reality  can  be  advanced,  which  does  not 
give  a  most  prominent  place  to  this  category.  Indeed,  it  is 
just  this  category,  which  makes  alive,  effective,  and  impressive, 
both  our  practical  and  our  theoretical  view  of  the  World.  This 
gone  or  left  out,  we  and  all  things  can  scarcely  be  even  so 
much  as  u  A  moving  row  of  shadow-shapes." 

The  genesis  and  earlier  developments  of  the  conception  of 
Force  are  connected  with  a  certain  experience,  common  to  all 
men,  which  arises  in  the  consciousness  of  those  terms  on 
which  the  Self  has  intercourse  with  Things.  There  are  seve- 
ral uncertain  factors  in  the  analysis  of  this  experience,  even 
at  the  hands  of  the  most  incisive  of  experts  in  psychology. 
Indeed,  so  profound  and  comprehensive  is  this  experience  it- 


256  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

self  that  no  analysis  will,  probably,  succeed  in  sounding  its 
depths  or  in  mapping  out  its  entire  domain.  But  its  promi- 
nent features  are  sufficiently  well-known  and  agreed  upon  to 
serve  as  points  of  attachment  for  a  valid  metaphysical  theory. 
Into  the  details  of  this  analysis,  or  into  the  defence  of  our  own 
^peculiar  views  respecting  the  psychology  of  the  "  Force-con- 
cept," it  is  not  necessary  to  enter  here.  It  will  suffice  to  out- 
line this  experience  in  the  most  elementary  and  sketchy 
fashion. 

If  the  "  plain  man's  "  consciousness  is  inquired  of,  as  to  the 
view  which  it  holds  concerning  the  explanations  necessary  to 
any  understanding  of  the  changes  taking  place  in  the  complex 
of  observed  phenomena,  both  internal  and  external,  this  view 
may  be  suitably  expressed  in  about  the  following  way.  I  am 
myself  constantly  doing  a  lot  of  different  things  with  my 
self  or  with  the  other  beings  which  I  meet  in  the  course  of  my 
experience  ;  but,  then,  these  other  beings  are  also  constantly 
doing  a  lot  of  different  things  with  me.  Moreover,  I  know 
equally  well  that  these  beings  are  constantly  doing  a  lot  of 
different  things  with  one  another.  In  short,  I  live  in  a  world 
of  beings  that  cannot,  and  that  do  not,  let  each  other  alone  ; 
but  they  are,  on  the  contrary,  always  doing  something  to  one 
another,  and  having  something  done  to  them  by  one  another. 
Practical  knowledge  consists,  indeed,  in  knowing  how  to  do 
with  things ;  how  to  get  them  to  do  in  certain  ways  with  me ; 
and  how  to  avoid  their  doing  with  me,  in  certain  other  ways. 
All  knowledge,  both  practical  and  theoretical,  of  the  world  in 
which  I  myself  am  placed,  is  knowledge  of  the  manifold  ways 
which  its  beings  have  had,  and  may  be  expected  to  have,  of 
doing  something  and  of  having  something  done  to  them. 

That  view  of  the  changing  complex  of  phenomena,  which 
ascribes  this  complex  to  the  reciprocal  influences  of  the  differ- 
ent beings  of  the  world,  in  the  centre  of  which  the  self  stands 
as  both  observer  and  doer,  is  really  a  very  profound  and 
complicated  view.  It  brings  back  upon  us  all  the  problems 


FORCE   AND  CAUSATION  257 

that  belong  to  the  attempts  to  deal  critically  with  the  con- 
ception of  reality.  But  it  need  only  be  noticed  now  that 
the  view  is  based  upon  the  conception  of  Force  as  a  Cause  of 
Change.  At  the  very  heart  of  that  experience  which  ex- 
presses its  conclusions  in  such  a  naive  but  rational  and  highly 
suggestive  way,  we  recognize  the  "  self-felt  but  inhibited 
activity  "  to  which  we  were  obliged  to  refer  as  explaining  the 
rise  of  the  conception  of  "pure  being"  or  "  substantiality," 
as  applied  both  to  the  self  and  to  things.  But,  as  was  then 
said  (see  p.  123  f.),  no  actual,  concrete  experience  is  ever  an 
experience  of  pure  being,  mere  substance,  or  unconditioned 
activity.  And  the  category  now  under  examination  —  the 
conception,  namely,  of  force  as  a  cause  explanatory  of  change 
—  shows  plain  signs  of  the  aggregation  of  other  factors  about 
this  central  and  unanalyzable  factor  of  all  human  experience. 
Activity  is  never  pure ;  action  is  always  followed  by  change 
in  the  observed  internal  relations  of  the  Self,  and  of  the  Self 
toward  other  Things.  It  is  in  this  consciousness  of  acting, 
of  being  inhibited,  and  then  made  aware  of  subsequent 
changes  in  the  relations  of  the  Self  and  of  external  Things, 
that  the  conception  of  Force  is  formed.  The  action  of  any 
being,  when  regarded  as  the  cause  of  subsequent  changes  of 
relations,  either  internal  or  external  to  that  being,  is  its  exer- 
cise of  "force "  so-called.  Force  is  action  regarded  as  the 
vause  of  a  change  of  relations. 

Further  reflection  upon  every  correct  description  of  that 
particular  experience  in  which  the  conception  of  force  origi- 
nates shows,  in  a  very  impressive  way,  how  inextricably  in- 
tertwined are  the  categories  in  the  genesis  and  development 
of  all  human  experience.  Here,  when  starting  the  attempt 
to  discover  the  roots  of  the  category  of  Force,  there  have 
been  uncovered  the  kindred  but  not  identical  categories  of 
Change,  of  Relation,  and  of  a  peculiar  kind  of  relation 
which  is  ordinarily  called  that  of  "  being  a  Cause. "  But  at 
the  centre  of  all  is  the  mysterious  consciousness  of  "  being 

17 


258  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

alive ; "  and  this  was  found  to  be  equivalent  to  a  "  self-felt 
activity. " 

The  conception  of  cause  ranks  itself,  from  a  certain  point 
of  view,  under  the  conception  of  relation;  for  causation  is 
one  among  several  kinds  of  relations,  —  namely,  that  partic- 
ular relation  sustained  by  two  beings  in  action,  when  one  is 
said  to  be  somehow  accountable  for  the  other's  change  of 
state.  If  it  were  not  for  observed  changes  in  the  relations 
of  things  there  would  surely  be  no  need  to  discover,  or  to 
imagine,  any  explanation  of  change  in  the  form  of  forces 
said  to  be  "  inherent  in, "  or  "  transeunt  upon  "  things.  Yet 
cause  itself,  as  will  appear  more  clearly  later  on,  is  a  con- 
ception of  much  greater  complexity  than  is  the  conception  of 
either  action  or  force ;  although  the  latter  conception  —  that 
of  force  —  cannot  be  detached,  either  in  one's  experience 
with  particular  realities,  or  in  one's  theory  of  reality,  from 
that  peculiar  relation  between  things  to  which  is  given  the 
name  of  "cause."  Force  itself,  then,  cannot  be  described 
(not  to  say  defined)  without  reference  to  changes  in  the 
relations  of  things  for  which  it  furnishes  the  explanatory 
ground,  or  cause. 

What  has  just  been  claimed  in  a  general  way  may  now 
be  illustrated  by  some  example.  Suppose  that  I  have  made 
up  my  mind  to  lift  a  stone,  which  is  rather  heavy  for  my 
unaided  strength,  and  to  place  it  in  another  position  than 
the  one  it  now  occupies.  It  has  fallen  from  my  garden  wall ; 
and  I  will  replace  it,  if  I  am  able.  In  planning  this  trans- 
action it  is  likely  that  no  thought,  not  to  say  vivid  feeling, 
of  actually  exerting  force  has  entered  the  stream  of  my  con- 
sciousness, up  to  the  moment  when  I  begin  lifting  hard  at 
the  stone.  But  if  I  have  deliberated  over  the  prospect  of 
my  success  in  the  coming  effort,  my  mental  picture  of  the 
volitions  I  intend  to  put  forth  has  been  followed  by  a  mental 
picture  of  resulting  sensations  of  tension  and  strain  on  my 
part,  and  of  the  awakening,  in  a  strong  flood,  of  the  feeling 


FORCE   AND   CAUSATION  259 

of  external  resistance.  If  I  chose  to  be  very  nice  in  my  dis- 
crimination of  the  minute  changes  going  on  in  my  own  self- 
conscious  life,  1  might  doubtless  detect  that  the  process  of 
deliberation  itself,  with  its  consequent  mental  "effort"  to 
determine  beforehand  the  results  of  my  yet  further  subse- 
quent muscular  effort,  had  already  caused  a  change  in  my 
own  self.  But,  disregarding  these  niceties,  which  do  not 
eventuate  in  the  plain  man's  consciousness,  I  bend  my  back 
and  stiffen  my  muscles  to  the  task.  At  once  the  character 
of  that  stream  of  consciousness  I  call  myself  becomes  most 
profoundly  modified.  Looked  at  from  one  point  of  view,  I 
am  aware  that  I  am  putting  forth  (for  me)  an  immense 
amount  of  my  force ;  looked  at  from  another  but  closely  cor- 
related point  of  view,  the  stone  is  resisting  this  force  of  mine 
by  itself  putting  forth  a  counteracting  force.  Jam  lifting 
upward :  it  is  pulling  downward ;  and  the  practical  question 
is,  which  of  the  two  is  going  to  exert  the  dominant  and  over- 
coming force.  Slowly  I  raise  it  to  its  place  on  the  wall ;  — 
it  meantime  showing  the  teeth  of  its  obstinate  resistance  by 
scraping  the  skin,  bruising  the  flesh  and  straining  the  heart 
and  back  of  its  fellow  energizer.  Having  overcome  the 
stone  with  extreme  difficulty,  I  now  sit  down  on  another 
neighboring  stone,  —  myself  overcome,  —  and  proceed  to  re- 
flect upon  the  psychological  description  and  metaphysical 
import  of  this  accomplished  transaction. 

About  certain  features  and  implications  of  every  experi- 
ence like  that  just  described  there  can  be  little  or  no  doubt. 
On  the  side  of  self-consciousness  the  important  factor  is  this : 
the  idea  and  volition  to  produce  a  certain  change  in  an  ob- 
ject not-self —  that  Thing  lying  in  space  out  of  me  and  in 
certain  observed  relations  to  other  external  objects  —  has 
been  followed  by  action  in  the  psycho-physical  Self,  with  an 
immense  increase  in  the  conscious  "feeling  of  effort"  so- 
called.  Much  of  this  complex  feeling  of  effort  is  itself, 
psycho-physically  considered,  of  peripheral  origin ;  it  is  a 


260  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

modification  of  sensation-consciousness  due  to  the  altered 
condition  of  muscles,  joints,  skin,  heart,  lungs,  diaphragm, 
and  other  organs  of  the  body  external  to  the  central  nervous 
system.  But  there  seems  as  little  reasonable  doubt,  that 
this  conscious  modification  is  not  all  of  peripheral,  but  is 
also  largely  of  central  origin.  Quite  irrespective  of  this 
disputed  point  in  physiological  psychology,  there  is  abso- 
lutely no  doubt  as  to  how  the  total  experience  appears  to  the 
self  in  consciousness;  it  is  as  an  immediately  known,  an 
"envisaged,"  exercise  of  its  own  force  in  the  accomplish- 
ment of  an  end  which  has  been  previously  presented  in  idea 
to  the  same  self.  1  moved  that  stone  —  to  be  sure,  with  my 
body,  and  only  by  "  putting  forth  "  all  my  strength.  It  is 
in  the  force  of  which  I  was  indisputably  conscious  as  belong- 
ing for  the  time  being  to  my  psycho-physical  self,  that  the 
vera  causa  of  the  change  which  has  happened  to  this  thing 
is  to  be  found.  This  psycho-physical  force  of  mine  was, 
however,  resisted  strongly  by  the  force  of  the  stone ;  it  was 
inhibited  so  that  at  one  instant  it  seemed  as  though  my  idea 
could  not  get  itself  realized  in  the  contemplated  change  of 
the  object-thing.  Thus  the  entire  transaction  appears  from 
the  most  interior  point  of  view  as  a  conflict  of  forces  differ- 
ently centered — the  one  in  my  Self,  and  the  other  in  the 
Thing,  not-myself. 

Such  a  complex  transaction,  however,  from  start  to  finish, 
is  not  satisfactorily  described  in  mere  terms  of  self-felt  and 
yet  inhibited  activity.  For  my  more  objective  experience 
undergoes  meanwhile  a  series  of  concomitant  and  dependent 
changes.  By  the  various  appropriate  forms  of  sense-percep- 
tion I  am  made  aware  of  a  succession  of  crossed  and  inter- 
laced variations  in  the  position  of  my  own  bodily  members 
and  in  the  positions  of  the  object-thing  (the  stone) ;  I  per- 
ceive also  a  variety  of  changing  relations  between  us  both 
and  other  things.  The  stone  is  lifted,  from  the  ground,  in 
my  arms,  and  placed  upon  the  wall.  Things  external  to  my 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  261 

body  are  now  arranged  differently  from  the  manner  of  their 
arrangement  a  few  moments  ago.  Popularly  expressed,  the 
exertion  of  my  force  has  made  the  stone  change  its  place  in 
space,  by  motion  from  one  position  to  another ;  the  exertion 
of  the  stone's  force  has  resisted,  pained,  and  fatigued  me. 
The  accomplished  change  in  the  stone's  relation  to  other 
things  has  for  its  cause  my  forthputting  of  energy,  directed 
toward  an  end  mentally  represented  beforehand ;  the  accom- 
plished change  in  the  condition  of  myself  has  for  its  cause 
the  forthputting  of  the  energy  of  the  thing  with  which  I  vol- 
untarily entered  into  a  relation  of  conflict  of  forces. 

Such  conceptions  as  the  foregoing,  doubtless,  seem  crude 
and  anthropomorphic  to  the  advocate  of  a  dialectical  meta- 
physics. Crude  they  may  be;  and  anthropomorphic  they 
certainly  are.  But  in  them  there  lies  hidden  the  entire 
ontological  problem  of  the  world's  incessant  behavior,  as 
that  problem  is  given  to  man  in  all  his  cognitive  experience 
concerning  the  terms  on  which  he  has  commerce  with  his 
fellows  and  with  things.  And  the  alleged  anthropomorph- 
ism, instead  of  turning  out  to  be  an  incidental  feature  which 
progressive  science  succeeds  in  throwing  off,  is  really  a 
valid  system  of  naive  explanations  that  underlies  the  entire 
body  of  human  science.  Such  anthropomorphism  is  an  ex- 
planatory principle  which  must  be  trustingly  received  and 
faithfully  applied  in  order  to  understand  the  deepest  Nature 
of  Reality.  It  is  based  upon  the  assumption  that  the  trans- 
actions of  the  real  world  are  all  to  be  accounted  for  as  the 
work  of  beings  that,  by  virtue  of  the  powers,  or  forces,  cen- 
tring in  them,  are  the  causes  of  changes  in  the  relations 
which  they  sustain  to  one  another.  The  moment,  however, 
this  assumption  is  applied  to  transactions  between  things 
other  than  selves,  it  implicates  the  belief  that  things,  too, 
are  so  far  forth  actually  constituted  after  the  analogy  of  the 
self-known  Self. 

In  a  word,  we  have  here  discovered  the  genesis  of  the  con- 


262  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

ception  of  "  Substantial  Causality. "  This  is  a  conception 
which  arises  inevitably  out  of  our  experience  with  things, 
and  which,  in  the  way  of  analogy,  is  carried  over  into  the 
constitution  of  the  things  themselves.  As  says  Wundt 1 : 
"The  substantializing  of  the  causal-concept  undoubtedly 
has  its  psychological  roots  in  our  active  personality "  ( in 
der  handeinden  PersonlichJceit) ;  and,  "  in  its  first  stadium 
the  conception  of  Force,  or  Energy,  is  identical  therewith  " : 
"Kraft  ist  substantielle  Causalitat."  The  force  that  is 
ascribed  to  things  —  and  without  such  ascription  the  entire 
world  of  ordinary  experience  and  the  world  of  scientific  in- 
terest and  achievement  is  a  mere  phantasmagoria,  a  swarm 
of  "shadow-shapes"  partially  amenable  to  logical  formulas 
—  is  projected  into  them  on  the  assumption  that  they,  like 
us,  are  real  centres  of  self-activity,  substantial  causes  of 
mutually  determined  changes  in  reality. 

The  psychological  objection  to  this  view,  that  our  experi- 
ence when  we  seem  to  ourselves  to  be  "  exerting  force "  is 
illusory,  does  not  alter  the  metaphysical  conclusion.  For 
the  fundamental  problem  is  wholly  missed  by  this  objection. 
This  problem  is  set  by  the  inquiry :  What  is  the  genesis  of 
the  conception  of  force  itself  ?  and,  Why  do  I  attribute  force 
to  things  in  their  relations  to  me,  even  if  I  am  not  war- 
ranted in  attributing  it  to  my  Self  in  relation  to  things  ? 
To  derive  the  genesis  of  the  force-concept  from  a  mere,  pas- 
sively conceived  sensation -content,  is  to  substitute  that 
which  is  first  for  that  which  is  last;  and  vice  versa.  Or, 
rather,  the  cognitive  experience  out  of  which  arise  the  con- 
ceptions of  my  Self  exerting  force,  and  of  having  force  ex- 
erted upon  me,  is  one  and  the  same  experience.  Being 
active  and  being  passive,  doing  and  being  done  to,  influenc- 
ing and  being  influenced,  exerting  force  on  another  and 
being  forced  by  another,  — use  what  words  you  will,  — they 
are  explicable  only  as  correlate  terms. 

Moreover,  such  correlate  terms  cannot  be  explained,  or 

i  System  der  Philosophic,  p.  292  f. 


FORCE   AND   CAUSATION  263 

even   described  with  reference   to   their   essential   content, 
without  reliance  upon  the  validity  of  this  same  primitive 
universal  experience.     Somehow  or  other  all  men  have  the 
conception  of  force,  and  employ  it  as  a  principle  of  explana- 
tion for  the  changes  which  take  place  in  the  relations  of  the 
particular  beings  of  the  world.     The  chemico-physical  sci- 
ences build  their  structures  upon  the  same  explanatory  prin- 
ciple.    But  this  conception   cannot   be   obtained   from  any 
merely  external  and  sensuous  observation  of  the  behavior 
of  things.     There  is  nothing  in  the  mere  intensity  or  exten- 
sive magnitude  of  sensations,  considered  as  content,  to  jus- 
tify or  even  to  suggest  such  a  conception.     What  if,  when 
one  grasps  the  stone  and  pulls  upon  it,  the  muscular  and 
tactual  and  other  sensations  become  more  painful  and  in- 
tense, and  seem  to  spread  over  a  larger  area  of  the  body  ? 
What  if  one  feels  certain  internal  sensations,  located  in  the 
heart,  lungs,  or  diaphragm,  changing  in  similar  fashion  ? 
All  this  is,  in  itself,  mere  fact  of  change  to  be  discriminated 
in  the  content  of  consciousness.     But  why  explain  this  fact 
of  change  by  attributing  it  to  some  invisible,  intangible, 
non-sensuous  cause,  called  my  force,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
called  the  force  of  gravitation,  or  the  down-pulling  force  of 
the  stone,  on  the  other  hand  ?     To  this  question  no  answer 
can  be  given  that  does  not  recognize  the  truth  which  consti- 
tutes the  core  of  every  man's  experience  in  all  such  cases. 
On  the  one  hand,  is  in  fact,  a  self-felt  activity,  and  on  the 
other  hand,  an  inhibition  of,  or  opposition  to  that  activity ; 
and  this  latter  is  actually  attributed,  after  the  analogy  of 
the  Self's  behavior,  to  the  Thing  that  is  not-self. 

Now  if  by  the  study  of  physiology  and  physiological  psy- 
chology it  is  shown  that  what  appears  in  consciousness  as  a 
self-felt  activity  is,  after  all,  only  the  feeling  of  the  back, 
arms,  heart,  lungs,  and  diaphragm,  and  that  these  impor- 
tant organs  force  upon  consciousness  the  illusion  of  being 
a  centre  of  activity,  the  essential  truth  of  the  case  is  not 


264  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

altered.  The  question  recurs :  Why  are  the  back,  or  other 
organs  of  the  body,  thought  of  as  being  the  "substantial 
causes  "  of  both  the  change  in  my  consciousness  and  also  in 
the  position  of  the  external  thing?  This  singular  illusion 
as  much  needs  to  be  accounted  for  as  does  the  most  naive 
confidence  of  an  unreflecting  realism.  In  fact,  to  speak  of 
the  application  of  the  force-concept  to  the  Self  as  an  illusion 
only  increases  the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  understanding 
the  genesis  of  the  concept  itself.  Instead  of  doing  honor  to 
the  real  potencies  residing  in  things,  and  to  the  sciences 
which  deal  so  successfully  with  these  potencies,  this  defec- 
tive psychological  analysis  goes  far  to  undermine  the  reality 
of  all  force  and  the  truthfulness  of  all  the  physical  sciences. 

The  candid  physicist  is  apt  to  have  far  less  trouble  with 
his  metaphysics  of  force  than  is  the  psychologist  who  is 
influenced  by  the  prejudices  of  an  insufficient  analysis.  This 
is  because  the  former  deals  with  the  phenomena  in  terms  of 
conceptions  that,  however  crude  they  may  be,  are  based  upon 
fundamental  data  in  some  genuine,  safe,  and  realistic  way. 
The  examination  of  the  current  physical  uses  of  this  cate- 
gory is  therefore  most  instructive  to  the  student  of  syste- 
matic metaphysics.  But  on  the  threshold  of  any  such 
examination  we  are  met  by  two  classes  of  writers  on  phys- 
ics. There  are  those  who,  being  from  the  first  desirous  to 
avoid  all  metaphysical  assumptions  or  else  suspicious  of  the 
particular  implications  which  belong  to  the  conception  of 
force,  try  to  make  as  little  use  as  possible  of  this  concep- 
tion. But  other  writers,  seeing  clearly  that  this  conception 
cannot  possibly  be  dispensed  with  by  the  scientific  student 
of  physical  principles,  define  it,  at  least  in  a  provisional  and 
semi-practical  way.  They  then  proceed  either  to  employ  the 
conception  in  the  development  of  their  science,  or  to  substi- 
tute for  it  the  more  definite  and  manageable  conception  of 
energy. 

It  is  notable  of  that  class  of  physicists  who  make  the  more 


FORCE   AND  CAUSATION  265 

serious  attempt  to  handle  the  conceptions  of  physics  with  as 
little  as  possible  recognition  of  the  metaphysical  nature  of 
the  conception  of  Force  that  they  succeed  in  appearance 
only ;  over  and  over  again  they  find  themselves  compelled 
to  introduce  covertly  the  same  conception,  although  ex- 
pressed in  obscure  and  inappropriate  terms.  If  the  word 
"  energy  "  be  substituted  for  the  word  "  force, "  we  do  indeed 
obtain  a  most  valuable  new  working  theory.  But  if  we  de- 
fine or  even  describe  in  terms  of  our  experience  with  real 
things,  what  is  meant  by  energy,  we  can  scarcely  avoid  in- 
troducing in  a  modified  way  factors  belonging  to  the  other 
and  more  fundamental  conception,  To  speak  of  "work" 
actually  done,  or  of  the  "  potential "  of  work,  involves  a  ref- 
erence to  essentially  the  same  experience.  All  the  measure- 
ments of  physics  are  indeed,  primarily  accomplished  by  the 
application  of  some  standard  to  the  results  of  force  —  that  is, 
to  the  movements  of  physical  bodies,  or  to  the  distances  and 
relations  in  space  of  bodies  regarded  as  movable.  But  the 
very  significance  of  spatial  relations,  as  indicating  the  pos- 
sibility, or  the  certainty,  of  actual  movement  in  the  future, 
is  entirely  lost  without  reference  to  the  conception  of  force 
as  the  non-sensuous  cause  of  change. 

Physics  itself,  as  soon  as  it  becomes  anything  more  than 
a  purely  abstract  science  of  phoronomics,  is  essentially  a 
science  of  dynamics.  Indeed,  phoronomics  itself  =  kine- 
matics; and  the  latter  cannot  be  brought  into  touch  with 
reality  anywhere  except  as  it  "forms  properly  an  introduc- 
tion to  mechanics,"  because  it  "involves  the  mathematical 
principles  which  are  applied  to  its  data  of  forces." 

Still  further,  it  will  be  found  that  all  attempts  to  describe 
or  define  those  material  beings  which  physical  science  investi- 
gates, are  obliged  to  connect  the  conception  of  force,  as  a 
cause,  with  their  description  or  definition  of  matter.  Tn  the 
barest  and  vaguest  thought  about  it,  matter  is,  at  least,  a 
"that- which"  producing  effects  in  the  senses  of  man.  And 


266  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

if  this  bare  and  vague  thought  is  helped  out  —  as  must  hap- 
pen before  the  beginnings  of  a  science  of  physics  can  emerge 

—  by  statements  concerning  the  habitual  doings  of  this  sub- 
stance, these  statements  themselves  become  descriptive  of 
different  effects  ascribed  to  one  substantial  cause.      Here 
again  the  mind  is  led  back  to  the  experience  which  warrants 
this  belief :  To  be  a  force  =  to  be  a  substantial  cause. 

Abundant  illustrations  of  the  impossibility  of  treating 
physical  subjects  without  virtually  introducing  the  concep- 
tion of  Force  as  a  Substantial  Cause  of  changing  spatial  rela- 
tions may  be  derived  from  all  the  writings  which  have  made 
the  attempt  at  such  treatment.  It  is  better  worth  the  while 
of  the  critical  student  of  metaphysics,  however,  to  note  how 
all  the  more  definite  accepted  descriptions  of  this  category 

—  however  imperfectly  or  awkwardly  expressed  —  come  to 
the   same   fundamental   conclusion.     The   world   of  things 
which  are  constantly  changing  their  relations  in  space,  by 
movement  in  gross  masses,  and  movement  of  their  molecular 
or  atomic  parts,  must  be  explained  to  the  human  intellect  as 
dependent  upon  invisible  and  intangible  causes  —  called  the 
forces  "of,"  or  "in,"  or  "belonging  to,"  things.      These 
very  words  "of,"  and  "in,"  and  "belonging  to,"  are  them- 
selves the  embodiment,  in  figures  of  speech,   of  that  same 
fundamental   and   essentially  unchanging  experience  which 
has  already  been  described  and  analyzed.     The  physical  in- 
terpretation of  these  figures  of  speech  would  lead  science 
into  not  a  few  awkward  predicaments ;  it  is,  therefore,  quite 
the  correct  thing  for  modern  physics  to  decline  to  discuss 
the  meaning  for  reality  of  these  significant  figures  of  speech. 
It  is  not  the  physicist's  business  to  tell  what  is  the  qualifica- 
tion, or  aspect,  of  things  which  makes  it  at  all  appropriate 
for  us  to  speak  of  them  as  in  the  possession  of,  or  as  being  the 
seats  of,  those  physical  forces  which  are  the  invisible  and 
intangible  substantial  causes  of  the  most  complex  of  changes 
that  go  on  in  the  material  World. 


FORCE   AND   CAUSATION  267 

"Force,"  says  Sir  William  Thomson,  "is  any  cause  which 
tends  to  alter  a  body's  natural  state  of  rest  or  of  uniform 
motion  in  a  straight  line."  Here  the  essentially  true  fac- 
tors of  the  conception  are  precisely  this :  Force  is  the  cause 
of  any  change  in  the  motion  of  a  body  as  referred  to  another 
body.  To  speak  of  "rest  or  of  uniform  motion  in  a  straight 
line"  as  the  "natural  state"  of  the  bodies  of  the  physical 
universe  is  a  fiction  which,  however  useful  it  may  be  for 
theoretical  purposes  (and  of  this  even  we  have  our  doubts)  is 
an  entirely  inadequate  representation  of  the  real  facts  of  the 
case.  This  theoretical  simplicity  does  not  represent  nature 
as  we  find  it.  Rarely,  if  ever,  does  nature  show  to  man,  as 
existing  in  the  present  or  as  having  existed  in  the  past,  in 
any  of  its  masses  or  of  the  particles  composing  its  masses, 
either  rest  or  uniform  motion  in  a  straight  line.  And  if 
such  were  the  "natural  "  state  of  the  world's  physical  bodies, 
no  system  of  definitely  constructed  and  organized  things 
which  is  precisely  what  we  call  Nature,  could  ever  be  ac- 
counted for  by  any  theory  of  forces  that  did  not  take  experi- 
ence more  into  the  account.  The  natural  state  of  all  things 
is,  so  far  as  experience  makes  us  acquainted  with  it,  rest- 
less and  ceaseless  changes  of  motions,  through  infinitely 
varied  spatial  relations  to  one  another.  The  invisible 
causes  of  these  changes  are  the  forces  that  are  figuratively 
said  to  "reside  in,"  or  "belong  to,"  the  different  things. 
As  to  the  propriety  of  identifying  a  mere  tendency  with  a 
force,  as  does  the  definition  of  Thomson,  we  will  not  remark 
here. 

More  clear-cut  is  the  definition  of  force  which  reverses  the 
point  of  starting  in  the  following  way :  "  Every  cause  cap- 
able of  determining  the  movement  of  a  body,  or  of  modify- 
ing a  movement  already  existing,  is  called  Force."  l  But  to 
speak  of  "a  cause  capable  of  determining"  is  to  repeat  the 

1  From  the  "  Cours  elementaire  de  Physique  "  of  Boutan  and  D'Almeida, 
I.,  p.  6. 


268  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

causal  idea  twice  over;  and  this,  after  having  once  suffi- 
ciently indicated  its  existence  by  the  word  "cause."  For 
no  force-less  being  is  "capable"  of  doing  anything;  and  no 
being  can  "determine  "  the  movement  of  another  being  with- 
out acting  upon  that  other  as  a  cause.  When,  again,  force 
is  defined  as  "  any  action  between  material  bodies  by  which 
they  change  or  tend  to  change  each  other's  condition  "  (so  S. 
Newcomb),  the  thought  is  expressed  that  the  activity  of  one 
thing  is  regarded  as  a  cause  (as  that  "  by  which  ")  of  change 
in  the  internal  or  external  relations  of  another  (a  mutual 
change,  as  "  between ; "  or  possibly  to  be  regarded  as  con- 
fined to  a  change  of  "condition  ").  But  if  all  physical,  phe- 
nomena are  resolved  into  changes  of  position  or  of  motion, 
then  force  is  briefly  defined  as  "the  efficient  cause  of  all 
physical  phenomena"  (E.  C.  Pickering).  Indeed,  most  of  the 
modern  definitions  of  force,  as  a  fundamental  conception  in 
physics,  contain  only  comparatively  slight  modifications  of 
the  language  in  which  Newton  stated  the  fourth  definition 
of  Book  I.  of  his  "  Principia  "  :  "  Force  is  an  action  exerted 
upon  a  body  in  order  to  change  its  state  either  of  rest  or  of 
moving  uniformly  forward  in  a  right  line."  But  Newton's 
statement  involves  both  the  same  assumption,  that  rest,  or 
uniform  motion  in  a  straight  line,  is  the  natural  condition 
of  real  things,  and  also  the  fictitious  and  external  view  of 
the  whole  subject  which  regards  an  action  as  something  cap- 
able of  actual  transmission  from  body  to  body.  It  also  has 
this  superfluity :  it  introduces  the  teleological  idea  ("  in 
order  to  "),  —  in  language,  if  not  in  fact.  Somewhat  unne- 
cessarily metaphysical  for  the  purposes  of  the  physicist, 
perhaps,  are  the  following  attempts  to  define  this  category : 
"The  invisible  causes  of  these  reciprocal  actions  we  call 
forces ;  "  l  or,  "  The  last  cognizable  cause  of  any  change  what- 
ever is  called  Force."2 

1  Muller's  "  Lehrbuch  der  Physik  und  Meteorologie ;  "  I,  p.  30. 

2  Bohn's  "  Ergebnisse  physikalischer  Forschung  ;  "  I,  p.  3. 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  269 

For  the  vague  and  intractable  metaphysical  conception 
which  attaches  itself  to  the  word  Force,  a  substitute  has 
been  provided,  with  a  more  definite  and  workable  content, 
by  modern  physics  in  connection  with  its  use  of  the  word 
"Energy."  Here  the  thought  is  a  measurable  quantity  of 
work  which  is  expressed  by  the  configuration  or  motions  of 
the  bodies  constituting  a  system  and  so  reciprocally  related 
to  each  other.  Thus  we  are  told  that  "  energy  may  be  de- 
fined as  the  power  of  doing  work  or  of  overcoming  resis- 
tance "  ("  Encyc.  Brit. ;?).  But  since  "  overcoming  resistance  " 
is  one  of  the  finest  and  bravest  ways  of  "doing  work,"  one 
scarcely  sees  the  need  of  employing  both  clauses.  Two  of 
the  writers,  whose  definitions  of  force  have  already  been 
quoted,  express  their  conception  of  energy,  as  follows: 
"Energy  is  an  ideal  physical  quantity  which  serves  as  a 
common  measure  of  certain  forces  or  results  of  action  in 
nature  "  (S.  Newcomb);  or  "By  energy  is  meant  the  capacity 
of  a  body  to  do  work  "  (E.  C.  Pickering).  Of  these  two 
definitions  the  former  brings  out  more  clearly  the  measur- 
ableness  of  the  energy  belonging  to  every  physical  body, 
whether  by  virtue  of  its  position,  or  its  motion,  in  relation 
to  other  bodies;  but  the  language  becomes  vacillating  and 
obscure  when  it  divides  that  which  is  measured  into  "forces," 
on  the  one  hand,  and  "the  results  of  action,"  on  the  other 
hand.  The  second  of  these  two  definitions  fails  to  bring 
out  clearly  the  quantitative  aspect  of  all  those  problems  in 
physics  which  deal  with  the  conception  of  energy.  For 
unless  "  capacity  "  means  merely  amount  of  work,  we  have 
in  it  and  in  the  words  "doing"  and  "work,"  the  same  idea 
repeated  once  or  twice  over. 

As  far  as  the  metaphysical  view  of  the  category  of  Force 
is  concerned,  the  physical  conception  of  Energy  has  nothing 
either  to  add  or  to  detract.  But  in  its  way  of  representing 
the  real  beings  and  actual  transactions  with  which  it  is  the 
business  of  physical  science  to  deal,  the  latter  conception,  as 


270  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

customarily  held  by  modern  writers,  is  much  the  more  cor- 
rect and  satisfactory  of  the  two.  For,  in  the  first  place,  the 
modern  conception  of  energy  isolates  some  system  of  bodies, 
and  considers  as  its  definite  problem  their  changes  of  actual 
position  or  of  motion;  second,  it  emphasizes  the  doing  of 
work,  which  is  something  appreciable  and  measurable; 
and,  third,  the  different  "  works  "  performed  by  the  different 
bodies  or  systems  are  held  to  be  comparable  with  one  an- 
other, by  application  of  some  common  standard,  in  terms  of 
number.  Upon  the  basis  of  this  kind  of  computation  we 
may  arrive  at  the  dynamical  science  of  the  changes  of  things. 
This,  then,  is  the  picture  of  a  world  of  real  physical  beings, 
all  at  work,  with  varying  and  yet  comparable  intensities  and 
results.  No  real  being  is  there  in  this  world,  that  does  not 
do  some  work;  no  being  is  there  whose  work  may  not  be 
brought  into  relations  with  the  work  of  other  beings  for 
their  mutual  hindrance  or  furtherance.  A  grandly  dynami- 
cal world,  where  every  "  body "  is  at  work ;  and  neither 
beings,  nor  forces,  are  ghostlike  and  merely  conceptual, 
or  in  the  air !  Or  —  to  state  the  truth  in  less  figurative 
terms,  although  perhaps  in  a  way  which  trangresses  the 
limits  of  safe  physical  theory :  —  "  The  conception  of  energy 
arises  out  of  the  direct  recognition  of  the  fact  that  every 
possible  change  in  the  physical  universe  is  effected  against 
some  Force,  and  it  is  just  in  virtue  of  its  power  of  overcom- 
ing such  force  that  a  body  is  said  to  have  energy.  ...  It  is 
in  virtue  of  its  possession  of  so  much  energy  —  a  measurable 
thing  —  that  any  body  does  work,  i.  e. ,  produces  change 
against  force. " 1 

If  now  we  analyze  more  carefully  this  dynamical  concep- 
tion of  the  world  which  modern  physical  science  has  adopted, 
it  seems  to  involve  the  following  important  particulars :  (1) 
The  world  of  things  is  known  as  having  some  sort  of  Unity 
that  is  referable  to  the  Conception  of  Force ;  (2)  this  unity 

1  "  Relation  of  Matter  to  Energy."    Monograph  by  "  B.  L.  L." 


FORCE  AND   CAUSATION  271 

comprises,  however,  a  vast  number  of  particular  beings  that 
must  be  regarded  as  in  possession  of,  or  as  centres  of,  defin- 
ite and  measurable  amounts  of  force;  (3)  these  particular 
beings, — -vehicles  of  energy,  or  centres  of  force, — as  the} 
change  their  relations  to  one  another  in  space,  or  their  in- 
ternal condition  (the  relations  of  the  molecules  or  atoms 
that  compose  them),  must  be  thought  of  as  increasing  or 
diminishing  in  the  amounts  of  work  they  are  doing;  (4)  the 
change  in  the  amounts  of  work  doing  by  these  particular 
beings  is  to  be  regarded  as  caused  by  a  redistribution  of  the 
One  Force  of  the  world;  (5)  all  changes  of  relations  and 
conditions,  which  take  place  through  this  ceaseless  redistri- 
bution of  the  World's  Force,  are  in  accordance  with  certain 
ideal  limitations  (that  is  to  say  they  are  not  haphazard,  but 
are  according  to  law) ;  and,  finally,  (6)  thus  does  the  World 
acquire  a  Unity  which  is  both  dynamical  and  ideal,  because 
it  consists  of  a  vast  number  of  beings,  that  are  all  doing 
work  "  upon  "  one  another,  but  in  some  fashion  that  has  re- 
spect to  a  set  of  regulations  and,  it  may  be,  to  some  common 
goal  or  end.  At  any  rate,  upon  this  last  point,  the  actual 
results  observed,  and  both  accepted  as  a  working  postulate 
and  also  progressively  proved  by  experience  to  constitute  a 
true  physical  theory,  indicate  an  orderly  behavior  of  many 
beings,  in  the  accomplishment  of  a  "self-respecting"  and 
"  mutually  respecting  "  work.  This  work,  as  a  totality  and 
in  all  its  details,  involves  constant  resistance,  conflict,  reac- 
tion as  well  as  action,  destruction  of  the  old  as  well  as  con- 
struction of  the  new.  But  all  this  conflict  and  change  does 
not  affect  any  of  these  six  essential  "  moments  "  in  the  physi- 
cal and  dynamical  conception  of  the  world. 

Now,  before  a  student  of  systematic  metaphysics  trans- 
lates this  picture  —  so  fair  and  grand,  yet  terrible  in  some 
of  its  aspects  —  into  the  ultimate  terms  of  his  theory,  he 
must  give  some  attention  to  those  more  particular  features 
of  the  picture  about  which  modern  physical  science  is  still 


272  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

obscure  and  uncertain,  and  even,  perhaps,  in  some  cases, 
self-contradictory.  Among  such  features  is  the  customary 
way  which  physical  science  has  of  elaborating  the  doctrine 
of  this  ceaseless  redistribution  of  energy.  Of  course,  it 
would  not  be  fair  to  expect  of  physical  science  that  it  should 
think  out  for  itself  the  meaning  of  all  the  figures  of  speech 
which  it  is  obliged  to  employ.  Probably  few  of  its  students 
do  not  recognize  at  once  the  truth  of  the  statement  that  to 
speak  of  energy  as  some  kind  of  an  entity,  which  can  actu- 
ally pass  from  one  physical  body  to  another,  or  which  can  be 
regarded  as  a  kind  of  gross  sum  that  is  capable  of  being  it- 
self subdivided  into  different  amounts  and  species  of  ener- 
gies, is  to  employ  highly  figurative  language  for  the  scientific 
expression  of  a  multitude  of  facts  that  differ  widely  in  their 
character  as  given  by  our  actual  experience.  When,  then, 
so  clear  thinkers  as  Tait  and  Clerk-Maxwell  assert  that 
"energy  has  been  shown  to  have  as  much  claim  to  objective 
reality  as  matter  has "  (Tait),  and  yet  "energy  we  know  only 
as  that  which,  in  all  natural  phenomena,  is  continually  pass- 
ing from  one  portion  of  matter  to  another  "  (Clerk-Maxwell),1 
we  must  understand  them  as  dealing  in  convenient  figures  of 
speech.  As  to  the  truth  which  is  expressed  in  the  former  of 
these  two  statements,  only  thus  much  is  either  certain  or 
intelligible.  The  only  "claim  to  objective  reality,"  which 
physical  energy  can  show  is  to  be  found  in  our  ideal  inter- 
pretation of  the  observed  or  imagined  changes  in  the  rela- 
tions of  material  things.  On  the  other  hand,  the  only 
"  claim  to  objective  reality "  which  matter  has,  depends 
upon  things  so  manifesting  themselves  in  our  experience 
as  that  we  are  compelled  to  regard  them  as  possessing  and 
exercising  force.  That  is  to  say,  "  matter "  must  show 
"force,"  in  order  to  establish  its  claim  to  objective  reality; 
but  physical  "  force  "  is  itself  never  shown  apart  from  some 
kind  of  physical  existence  =  "matter,"  in  general.  To 

1  Matter  and  Motion,  p.  165. 


FORCE  AND   CAUSATION  273 

speak  then  of  our  knowing  energy  only  as  it  continually 
"  passes  from  one  portion  of  matter  (thing,  or  constituent  of 
a  thing)  to  another,"  is  to  deny  that  we  can  know  energy  at 
all  For  energy  can  never  be  known,  or  even  conceived  of, 
as  an  objective  reality  capable  of  actual  transference  from 
one  thing  to  another. 

At  this  point  it  is  necessary  to  call  critical  reflection  back 
to  the  facts  of  cognitive  experience.  What  the  mind  knows 
is  simply  this :  (1)  material  things  are  constantly  changing 
both  their  external  relations  to  one  another  in  space,  and 
also  the  internal  relations  of  their  constituent  parts;  (2) 
these  changes  are  measurable  and  comparable,  by  applica- 
tion of  standards  chosen  for  purposes  of  theoretical  or  prac- 
tical convenience ;  and  (3)  the  causes  for  these  changes  we 
are  somehow  compelled  to  find  in  the  so-called  "  forces " 
belonging  to  the  things.  The  general  facts  of  experience 
may  be  expressed  as  follows:  Of  a  number  of  physical  be- 
ings, A,  B,  C,  D,  etc.,  existing  together  in  time,  their  simul- 
taneous or  successive  changes  are  observed  to  conform  to 
some  ideal  principle,  or  formula,  such  as  x  =  A.  Y,  or  x 
varies  as  ^/  y.  The  cause  of  this  uniform,  mutually  depen- 
dent behavior  of  A,  B,  (7,  D,  etc.,  is  then  declared  to  be 
found  in  their  common  possession  of  one  (or  one  kind  of) 
energy ;  —  namely,  Eg  or  Eh  (energy  due  to  gravitation,  or 
energy  that  is  called  heat).  And,  next,  the  principle,  or 
formula,  is  spoken  as  the  law  of  that  particular  kind  of 
energy  (the  formula,  L,  which  is  followed  by  Eg  or  Eh). 

But,  further,  it  is  learned  by  experience  that  when  the 
measurable  changes  in  the  internal  condition  or  external 
relations  of  A  are  increased  or  diminished  by  a  certain  num- 
ber of  units  of  the  standard,  then  corresponding  changes  in- 
crease or  diminish  in  the  internal  condition  or  external 
relations  of  B  —  provided  that  A  and  B  are  the  two  bodies 
exclusively  to  be  considered.  What  is  true  of  A  and  B,  is 
also  true  of  A  and  (7,  of  B  and  <7,  and  of  A  and  D,  etc.  ;  and 

18 


274  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

so  on,  until  all  the  beings  concerned  (A,  B,  C,  D,  .  .  .  N) 
are  considered  in  all  their  possible  inter-relations.  Hence 
the  warrant  for  that  figure  of  speech  which  regards  E  as  a 
gross  amount  of  an  entity  called  energy,  that  may  be  redis- 
tributed continually  amongst  A,  B,  (7,  D,  etc.,  by  being 
transmitted  or  passed  over  from  one  to  another.  The  im- 
possibility of  any  such  actual  transaction,  however,  follows 
from  the  very  nature  of  force;  and  no  meaning  valid  for 
reality  can  be  given  to  any  of  the  expressions  that  follow 
this  figure  of  speech  without  referring  back  to  the  original 
experience  to  which  the  genesis  of  the  entire  conception  of 
force  has  been  traced.  All  that  is  observed  by  the  senses 
is  external  to  the  true  inner  nature  of  things,  regarded  as 
centres  of  force;  but  we  know  what  this  inner  nature  is, 
whenever  we  have  that  living  commerce  with  them  in  which 
our  will-power  is  met,  opposed,  and  overcomes  or  is  van- 
quished, by  the  will-power  which  we,  on  account  of  this  very 
experience  attribute  to  them. 

.  In  this  connection  the  fallacy  of  one  assumption,  —  at  any 
rate,  as  an  assumption  —  which  has  clung  to  the  science  of 
physics  with  a  strange  pertinacity  requires  a  brief  notice. 
This  assumption  is  the  denial  of  actio  in  distans,  as  though 
it  were  impossible  and  even  inconceivable  as  a  qualification 
or  potency  of  matter.  When  the  mystery  of  gravitation  was 
first  discovered,  it  was  natural  enough  to  endeavor  to  lessen 
this  mystery  by  explaining  the  so-called  force  of  gravitation 
through  some  kind  of  impact.  If  enough  little  bodies  could 
be  imagined  to  hit  the  big  bodies  a  sufficient  number  of  ener- 
getic blows  to  the  second,  the  former  could  give  over  into 
the  possession  of  the  latter  a  force  sufficient  to  account  for 
their  influence  upon  one  another  through  intervening  space. 
Thus  Newton,  in  a  letter  to  Bentley,1  declares  it  to  be  "in- 
conceivable that  inanimate  brute  matter  should  .  .  .  affect 
other  matter  without  mutual  contact."  "That  one  body," 

1  See  Newton's  Works,  ed.  S.  Horsley,  vol.  iv.  p.  438. 


FORCE   AND   CAUSATION  275 

he  adds,  "may  act  upon  another  at  a  distance  through  a 
vacuum  without  the  medium  of  anything  else, "  is  "  so  great 
an  absurdity  that  no  man  who  has  in  philosophical  matters 
a  competent  faculty  of  thinking,  can  ever  fall  into  it. "  In 
accordance  with  the  same  views  of  the  inconceivability  of  a 
true  actio  in  distans  we  find  Bernoulli l  declaring  the  exercise 
of  force  without  impact  "revolting  to  minds  accustomed  to 
receiving  no  principle  in  physics  save  those  which  are  in- 
contestable." "There  is,"  says  Professor  Challis2  also,  "no 
other  kind  of  force  than  pressure  by  contact  of  one  body  with 
another. "  And  not  a  few  of  the  highest  modern  authorities 
have  not  hesitated  to  pronounce  upon  the  a  priori  impossi- 
bility of  the  conception  of  the  action  of  force  without  im- 
pact. "Gravity  cannot  act,"  boldly  declares  Mohr,3  "except 
by  the  interposition  of  ponderable  matter. "  "  Forces  acting 
through  void  space  are  inconceivable,  nay  absurd,"  says  Du 
Bois-Reymond,4  "and  have  become  familiar  concepts  among 
physicists  since  Newton's  time  from  a  misapprehension  of 
his  doctrine  and  against  his  express  warning."  And  the 
authors  of  the  "Unseen  Universe,"6  in  plainest  violation  of 
the  confidence  which  they  might  well  have  reposed  in  the 
title  chosen  for  their  treatise,  affirm:  "Of  course  the  as- 
sumption of  action  at  a  distance  may  be  made  to  account  for 
anything;  but  it  is  impossible  (as  Newton  has  long  pointed 
out  in  his  celebrated  letter  to  Bentley)  for  any  one  'who  has 
in  philosophical  matters  a  competent  faculty  of  thinking '  for 
a  moment  to  admit  the  possibility  of  such  action." 

Now  as  to  the  question  of  fact  —  namely,  whether  the  phy- 
sical bodies  of  the  universe  do  act,  as  it  is  figuratively  said, 
"upon"  one  another,  without  coming  into  relations  of  con- 
tact—  metaphysics  is  entirely  ready  to  leave  the  observa- 

1  See  the  reference  in  Stallo,  "  Modern  Physics,"  p.  55. 

2  Philos.  Mag.  4th  Series,  vol.  xxxi.,  p.  467. 
8  "Geschichte  der  Erde,"  Appendix,  p.  512. 

*  Ueber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturerkennens,  p.  20. 
6  Ibid.,  3d  ed.,  p.  100  (Stewart  and  Tait). 


276  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

tions  of  physicists  to  decide.  And  here  two  conceptions  of 
matter  (to  which  reference  will  be  made  later  on)  have  for  a 
long  time  contested,  and  perhaps  will  always  continue  to 
contest  the  field.  These  are  the  conception  of  matter  as 
consisting  of  masses,  or  elements,  set  in  an  empty  medium 
of  space,  and  the  conception  of  matter  as  a  completely  space- 
filling continuum.  Now  there  is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  the 
conception  of  force  which  enables  us  to  choose  between  these 
two  conceptions ;  and  both  of  them  leave  the  nature  of  force, 
considered  as  the  substantial  cause  of  the  changes  which  go 
on  in  the  configurations  and  spatial  relations  of  material 
masses,  equally  mysterious,  equally  natural,  simple,  and 
intelligible.  But  if  we  are  driven  to  a  choice  on  a  priori 
grounds  between  the  two,  we  may  well  declare  that  offhand 
denials  of  the  possibility  of  actio  in  distant  are,  of  all  forms 
of  assumption,  the  most  childishly  anthropomorphic.  In- 
deed, the  only  solid  ground  afforded  for  these  denials  is 
the  fact  that  we,  bodily  selves,  cannot  determine  changes  in 
not-selves,  in  things  external  to  the  body,  unless  we  get 
some  bodily  organ  so  close  to  the  things  that  we  can  feel 
their  pressure  without  readily  seeing  between  it  and  them. 
This  is  what  impact  means  to  the  senses.  And,  indeed,  one 
of  these  authorities  in  physics  rests  his  objections  upon  this 
very  ground.  Professor  Challis  expressly  insists  that  since, 
only  when  we  have  come  into  actual  contact  with  a  thing,  do 
"  we  feel  in  ourselves  the  power  of  causing  motion  by  such 
pressure,"  and  since  "personal  sensation"  is  the  only  "basis 
of  scientific  knowledge,"  we  are  forbidden  to  admit  that 
any  mode  of  moving  one  body  by  another  is  possible  except 
that  of  contact  and  pressure. 

But  in  answer  to  those  physicists  who  claim  the  inconceiv- 
ability of  actio  in  distans,  the  objections  from  psychology  and 
philosophy  are  numerous  and  complete.  Pressure-feeling  is, 
of  itself,  no  more  translatable  into  immanent  or  transeunt 
force  than  is  another  kind  of  feeling.  The  apparent  contact 


FORCE   AND   CAUSATION  277 

of  the  bodily  organ  with  the  thing  it  presses  upon  is  not 
actual  contact.  Neither  it  nor  any  other  two  things  or  mi- 
nute subdivisions  of  things,  are  ever  known  by  the  senses  to 
come  into  actual  contact;  and  the  mystery  of  influence  over 
the  minutest  amount  of  space  is  essentially  as  great  as  that 
of  influence  over  millions  of  miles  of  space.  Moreover, 
actio  in  distans  cannot  be  conceived  of  as  the  traversing,  by  an 
entity  called  force,  of  either  the  smaller  or  the  larger  dis- 
tance ;  for  there  is  really  no  such  transaction  as  the  actual 
passing  of  force  from  one  body  to  another.  Such  a  passing 
— •  no  matter  how  close  the  contact  —  is  the  inconceivable 
thing,  and  not  the  figuratively  so-called  actio  in  distans. 
And,  indeed,  the  idea  that  "  a  body  cannot  act  where  it  is 
not,"  is  the  relic  of  mediaeval  metaphysics  in  the  domain  of 
modern  physics. 

But  the  one  demand  which  the  philosophical  mind  makes 
upon  the  conception  of  force  is  that  it  shall  serve  actually  to 
unite  the  varied  changes  in  the  different  bodies  of  the  physi- 
cal world  into  the  Unity  of  a  System.  It  was  this  demand 
which  Newton  felt,  as  the  very  passage  cited  so  often  by  his 
followers  explicitly  shows.  For  this  passage  ends  with  the 
significant  declaration:  "Gravity  must  be  caused  by  an 
agent  acting  constantly  according  to  certain  laws  "  (that  is, 
in  a  legal  and  ideal  way) ;  "  but  whether  this  agent  is  mate- 
rial or  immaterial  1  have  left  to  the  consideration  of  my 
readers."  Now  since  all  force  is  essentially  "immaterial," 
in  the  meaning  in  which  Newton  uses  this  word,  and  yet  is 
immanently  connected  with  the  very  being  of  all  so-called 
material  things,  one  may  guess  without  long-continued  hesi- 
tation what  view  of  the  truth  this  master  in  physics  felt 
himself  compelled  to  take.  Force,  which  is  =  cause  of 
changes  of  motion,  is  an  immaterial  agent,  but  present  in 
all  material  things;  otherwise  these  things  would  be  "in- 
animate brute  matter"  —  to  use  Newton's  own  significant 
words. 


278  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

The  modern  physical  principle  of  the  conservation  and 
correlation  of  energy,  and  the  claim  that  the  quantum  of 
such  energy  in  the  universe  is  unchanging,  summarizes  a 
vast  amount  of  observation  and  carefully  framed .  theory. 
The  propositions  and  assumptions  which  enter  into  this  the- 
ory are  worthy  of  careful  examination  by  the  student  of  sys- 
tematic metaphysics;  but  their  complete  truthfulness  in 
fact,  or  the  satisfactoriness  of  the  theory,  does  not  alter  the 
nature  or  the  validity  of  his  conception  of  Force.  The  the- 
ory, however,  requires  one  distinction  which  is  of  no  little 
interest  and  importance.  This  is  the  distinction  between 
"  kinetic  "  energy  and  "  potential  "  energy ;  or  between  en- 
ergy which  is  measurable  as  observable  changes  in  the  ex- 
ternal relations  or  internal  conditions  of  bodies,  and  energy 
which  is  imagined  to  be  located  in  these  bodies  by  virtue 
of  their  relations  of  position  or  their  statical  condition  of 
strain,  tension,  etc.  In  the  one  case  we  have  the  concep- 
tion of  energy  that  is  actually  "doing  work  "  by  producing 
changes  of  velocity  in  the  masses  or  the  constituents  of  the 
masses,  of  physical  bodies ;  in  the  other  case,  we  are  asked 
to  imagine  an  energy  which  is  liable  to  be  "  set  free  "  for  the 
actual  doing  of  work  by  some  change  in  the  mutual  configur- 
ation of  the  bodies  of  the  system  in  which  it  resides.  Of 
course  the  language  employed  by  this  distinction  is  highly 
figurative.  That  energy,  which  is  something  essentially  per- 
ceivable and  measurable  as  a  product  of  mass  and  velocity, 
or  units  of  motion  in  units  of  time,  should  be  spoken  of  as 
"potential"  or  "stored,"  carries  our  reflection  back  to  the 
psychological  origin  and  metaphysical  signifiance  of  the  con- 
ception of  Force. 

Most  instructive,  therefore,  is  it  to  take  the  ideas  in- 
volved in  the  distinction  between  potential  energy  and 
kinetic  energy  before  our  na'ive  and  unscientific  experience 
with  things.  In  this  experience  we  note  the  significant  fact 
that  one  often  seems  to  one's  self  to  be  exercising,  or  suffer- 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  279 

ing  from,  no  small  amount  of  force,  without  any  notable 
change  by  way  of  motion  marking  the  result.  This  would 
have  been  the  case  with  me  at  the  instant  when  I  was  lift- 
ing hard  at  the  stone  and  the  stone  had  not  yet  begun  to 
move.  I  should  then  have  known  myself  as  in  a  condition 
of  "  stress  "  or  "  strain, "  —  that  is,  as  possessed  of  energy 
not  yet  made  effective  as  a  cause  of  actual  motion.  The 
not-self-object,  the  stone,  would  also  have  been  thought  of 
as  liable  to  prove  too  strong  for  me.  It  will  perhaps  con- 
tinue to  cling  to  the  ground ;  or  when  raised  a  little  way,  it 
will  move  backward  toward  the  ground,  in  defiance  of  my 
utmost  force. 

Moreover,  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  "position," 
as  respects  the  effects  of  the  ordinary  exercise  of  so-called 
force,  are  perfectly  well  known  by  every  observing  man. 
For  the  stone  can  show  me  its  inherent  force  in  a  much  more 
convincing  way  when  it  is  placed  upon  my  foot ;  or  particu- 
larly when  it  falls  upon  me  from  a  considerable  height. 
Again,  if  I  throw  it  from  my  hand,  it  drops  to  the  ground 
at  a  more  or  less  remote  point  according  as  I  put  more  or 
less  of  my  force  into  the  throw.  Or  if  I  wish  to  avail  my- 
self of  the  weight  of  the  stone,  or  of  a  hammer,  to  accom- 
plish work,  the  higher  the  lift  of  the  implement,  the  greater 
the  amount  of  work  done  by  the  blow. 

What  is  thus  crude  and  inaccurate  in  every  man's  worka- 
day knowledge,  physical  science  renders  refined,  accurate, 
and  statable  in  terms  of  definite  formulas.  But  it  does  not 
in  the  least  change  man's  conception  of  what  can  really  be 
meant  by  the  "storing"  of  energy,  or  by  the  "potency" 
which  things  have  exclusively  in  virtue  of  their  advantageous 
positions;  or  by  the  "conversion"  of  a  kind  of  energy  that 
is  not  actually  doing  work  into  an  energy  which  is  actually 
at  work,  as  soon  as  the  favoring  circumstances  are  found. 
Inasmuch  as  it  taxes  the  imagination  to  picture  non-self-like 
things  in  the  possession  of  that  of  which  they  show  no  signs ; 


280  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

inasmuch,  too,  as  more  careful  observation  frequently  reveals 
an  indefinite  number  of  minute  movements,  hitherto  unsus- 
pected, going  on  in  such  things;  the  tendency  of  physical 
theory  is  toward  the  assumption  that  so-called  potential 
energy  is  never  really  non-kinetic.  "Potential  energy," 
says  Tait,  "must  in  some  way  depend  upon  motion."  If 
this  assumption  could  be  verified  in  all  cases  to  perfection, 
then  the  sum  of  the  squares  of  the  velocity  of  every  portion 
of  matter,  multiplied  by  its  mass,  would  be  a  constant 
quantity.  Then  apparent  losses  of  energy  would  be  only 
apparent.  And  this  is  precisely  what  Leibnitz 1  —  although 
somewhat  crudely  —  conceived  to  be  true,  in  the  example  of 
two  non-elastic  bodies,  when  encountering  each  other.  They 
become,  he  thinks,  "agitated  interiorly"  with  an  amount  of 
motion  which  shows  that  there  has  been  no  real  loss  of  their 
active  forces.  The  physicist  Huygens,2  asserted  the  same 
opinion,  as  follows :  "  The  quantity  of  movement  which  bod- 
ies have  cannot  be  increased  or  diminished  by  their  encoun- 
tering each  other ;  but  it  always  remains  the  same  quantity 
in  the  same  direction  (vers  la  m$me  cdte),  after  subtracting 
the  quantity  of  movement  in  the  opposite  direction." 

It  is,  indeed,  only  as  an  abstract  and  a  priori  principle  of 
phoronomics  that  the  modern  theory  of  the  conservation  and 
correlation  of  energy  can  be  pronounced  to  be  demonstrative 
or  even  of  universal  applicability.  As  a  formula  explana- 
tory of  the  real  facts  of  experience  it  is  a  presupposition  in 
which  a  number  of  the  fundamental  dynamical  conceptions 
of  physics  are  united3;  it  is  not  workable  at  all  without 
admitting  the  somewhat  obscure  metaphysical  distinction 
between  actual  energy  and  potential  energy ;  it  has  hitherto 
been  proved,  as  an  empirical  rule,  only  within  a  somewhat 

1  "  Comp.  Opera,"  ed.  Erdmann,  p.  775." 

2  Article,  "  On  the  History  of  Force/'  by  Dr.  C.  K.  Akin :  "  Phil.  Mag."  4th 
Series,  vol.  xxviii.,  p.  470  f. 

3  Comp.    Wundt,  "  System    der    Philosophic,"   p.    467    (Phoronomische  und 
dynamische  Principien ) . 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  281 

narrow  range  of  observation ;  and  it  is  available  for  purposes 
of  prediction  (that  last  test  of  the  scientific  character  of  any 
principle)  only  in  a  certain  still  more  narrow  class  of  cases. 

The  clearest  picture  of  a  case  to  which  the  theory  of  the 
conservation  and  correlation  of  physical  energy  incontest- 
ably  applies  may  be  gained  in  somewhat  the  following  way : 
Let  us  suppose  a  number  of  bodies  —  -4,  -B,  0,  />,...  N — 
the  aggregate  sum  of  whose  capacity  for  doing  work  =  X,  if 
both  their  energies  of  motion  and  also  their  energies  of  posi- 
tion, as  due  to  the  amounts  of  attractions  and  repulsions 
belonging  to  their  relations  in  space,  be  taken  into  the  ac- 
count in  calculating  X.  Then,  so  long  as  this  system  of 
bodies  is  considered  in  a  merely  quantitative  way,  and  as 
uninfluenced  from  outside  itself,  the  energy  of  the  total  sys- 
tem will  be  neither  increased  nor  diminished.  The  energy 
distributed  among  the  different  bodies  of  the  system,  re- 
garded as  either  the  actual  or  the  potential  changes  in  their 
external  relations  and  internal  conditions,  will  be  a  con- 
stant quantity.  The  energy  of  J.,  B,  (7,  D,  .  .  .  N,  will 
remain  =  X.  To  employ  the  terse  language  of  Professor 
Tyndall,  on  the  supposition  that  the  "  system "  dealt  with 
includes  all  the  bodies  of  the  universe,  we  may  say :  "  The 
whole  stock  of  energy  or  working  power  in  the  world  con- 
sists of  attractions,  repulsions,  and  motions ; "  —  add  configu- 
rations, and  this  stock  is  a  constant  quantity. 

Now  it  is  to  be  observed  that,  when  the  principle  of  the 
conservation  and  correlation  of  energy  is  stated  even  in  this 
most  abstract  manner,  the  statement  implies  a  number  of 
assumptions  which  can  never  be  completely  verified  by  hu- 
man experience ;  that  any  concrete  application  of  the  prin- 
ciple to  a  particular  system  of  bodies  requires  data  which 
only  experience  can  furnish ;  and  that  any  actual  application 
may  possibly  modify  the  conception  of  the  principle  itself, 
in  a  very  material  way.  For,  in  order  to  work  the  theory, 
it  is  assumed  that  the  exact  amount  of  energy  stored  in  each 


282  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

mass,  and  in  each  molecule  or  atom,  of  the  bodies  belonging 
to  the  system,  by  virtue  of  all  its  relations  to  every  other 
mass,  molecule,  and  atom,  is  already  known.  It  is  also 
assumed  that  the  system  must  be  regarded  as  uninfluenced 
from  outside  of  itself.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  man  has  no 
knowledge  of  any  such  system ;  and  he  can  never,  from  the 
Tery  nature  of  his  experience  with  things,  obtain  a  knowledge 
of  any  such  system.  For  example,  it  is  possible  to  consider 
for  theoretical  purposes  some  of  the  motions  of  the  bodies 
••of  the  planetary  system  as  belonging  to  a  closed  system. 
But  the  movements  which  the  entire  system  performs,  as  it 
accompanies  the  sun  on  its  ceaseless  journey  into  unknown 
spaces,  are  to  be  explained,  if  at  all,  by  influences,  from  out- 
side itself.  And  whether  the  whole  universe  is  receiving 
additions  from,  or  making  losses  to  "the  outside,"  can  never 
be  known,  because  our  calculations  can  never  include  the 
whole  universe;  not  to  speak  of  "stocks"  of  energy  outside 
of  all  existing  physical  bodies  —  possibly  in  some  "immate- 
rial agent,"  such  as  Newton  felt  the  need  of  in  order  to 
transmit  and  distribute  the  force  of  gravitation. 

The  principle  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  energy 
^also  assumes  that  the  system  to  which  it  is  applied  may  be 
considered  in  a  merely  quantitative  way,  at  least  so  far  as 
its  power  for  doing  work  is  concerned.  But  the  principle  of 
the  "  conservation  "  of  energy,  as  a  constant  and  unchange- 
able quantity,  is  not  workable  as  an  explanation  of  the  facts 
of  human  experience,  until  it  is  united  with  the  principle  of 
the  "  correlation  "  of  energy.  That  is  to  say,  Nature  must 
be  at  liberty  to  change  the  kind  of  energy  she  employs,  or 
she  cannot  agree  to  keep  her  stock  unchangeable  in  quantity. 
Or,  to  quote  from  Clerk-Maxwell :  "  The  total  energy  of  any 
body  or  system  of  bodies  is  a  quantity  which  can  neither  be 
increased  nor  diminished  by  any  mutual  action  of  these 
bodies,  though  it  may  be  transformed  into  any  one  of  the 
forms  of  which  energy  is  susceptible"  (the  italics  are  ours). 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  283 

Thus  this  mysterious  big  X,  which  the  physical  theory  of 
energy  would  like  to  render  manageable  by  considering  it  as 
a  gross  quantity  (-X"  when  it  becomes  kinetic  energy,  or  Force 
actually  doing  work  —  no  matter  about  its  kind  =  S^MV2) 
becomes,  as  soon  as  the  theory  is  applied  to  actual  things,  an 
indefinite  storehouse  of  Force  that  differentiates  itself  into 
kinds  according  to  the  native  preferences,  or  repulsions, 
which  the  different  elements  and  masses  have  for  one  an- 
other. And  so  far  as  we  now  know,  every  little  x  (as  for 
example,  the  molecules  in  a  crystal,  or  the  atoms  in  a  chem- 
ical compound,  or  the  molecules  and  atoms  in  a  living  cell) 
has  a  somewhat  peculiar  set  of  "  laws  "  in  control  of  the  pre- 
cise items  of  work  done  within  its  system. 

It  becomes  necessary,  then,  in  order  to  give  a  valid  em- 
pirical basis  to  the  view  that  the  amount  of  energy  in  the 
world  is  kept  constant  (or  "  conserved "),  that  we  should 
know  precisely  on  what  numerical  terms  —  so  to  speak  — 
any  gross  amount  is  converted  into  different  so-called  kinds 
of  energy.  These  are  the  terms  of  agreement,  or  "  correla- 
tion," amongst  the  different  ways  which  the  different  beings 
of  the  world  have,  of  doing  their  different  kinds  of  work. 
Now  modern  physics  has  made  some  notable,  but  not  a 
large,  progress  in  reducing  to  approximately  accurate  form- 
ulas the  quantitative  relations  which  are  uniformly  main- 
tained between  the  different  kinds  of  physical  energy.  Its 
success  has  been  most  marked  as  respects  the  correlations  of 
the  energy  of  moving  masses  with  the  molecular  energy 
called  "heat."  In  respect  of  the  mathematical  theory  of 
light,  of  electricity,  and  of  magnetism,  it  has  put  forth  com- 
mendable efforts  definitely  to  correlate  the  kinds  of  energy 
connected  with  these  phenomena,  with  one  another,  and  with 
the  energy  of  heat  and  of  gravitation.  In  carrying  out  these 
efforts  it  has  felt  itself  compelled  to  assume  the  existence  of 
another  kind  of  being,  called  "ether,"  which  is  in  some  re- 
spects astonishingly  unlike  that  kind  of  being  which  is 


284  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

known  through  the  senses  and  is  called  "matter."  Even 
by  the  help  of  this  assumption,  however,  it  is  still  far  from 
a  successful  inductive  proof  for  the  necessary  and  universal 
character  of  the  principle  of  the  conservation  and  correla- 
tion of  energy.  Ordinary,  "brute  and  inanimate  matter,'* 
when  considered  as  constituted  out  of  some  seventy  different 
kinds  of  elements,  as  these  constituents  enter  into  the  indefi- 
nitely manifold  relations  of  which  they  are  capable,  shows 
itself  capable  of  doing  very  manifold  amounts  and  kinds  of 
actual  work.  The  facts  of  chemistry,  inorganic  and  organic, 
and  especially  physiological,  are  at  present  so  fast  outstrip- 
ping the  merely  quantitative  explanations  offered  by  physi- 
cal theory,  that  to  assert  the  undoubted  applicability  of  this 
principle  to  all  these  facts  is  seemingly  to  anticipate  by  cen- 
turies the  needed  empirical  proofs. 

It  is  not,  however,  for  the  purpose  of  contesting  the  theory 
of  energy  held  by  modern  physics  that  the  above  remarks 
have  been  made.  We  wish  only  to  call  attention  back  to 
the  actual  picture  of  the  physical  world  with  which  man's 
trustworthy  knowledge  presents  him,  and  to  the  real  and  valid 
meaning  of  those  figures  of  speech  which  physical  science 
employs  in  stating  its  own  principles.  The  "energy"  dis- 
played by  the  world  of  things  is,  of  course,  not  really  an 
entity  which  can  be  "stocked"  and  "distributed,"  "con- 
served "  as  a  lump  sum  and  "  correlated  "  with  itself  as  it 
takes  on  a  variety  of  different  kinds.  The  truth  of  fact  is 
simply  this :  the  physical  bodies  known  to  us  behave  in  such 
a  manner  that  if  we  are  at  liberty  to  regard  them  merely  as 
vehicles  of  energy,  we  can  partially  explain  this  behavior  in 
terms  of  mathematical  formulas.  This  mode  of  explanation, 
however,  is  and  must  forever  remain  exceedingly  "  partial. " 

For  mathematical  formulas  never  in  themselves  furnish 
the  complete  and  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  behavior  of 
things,  with  reference  to  one  another.  And  —  truth  to  say 
—  no  mathematical  formulas  for  the  behavior  of  things,  ex- 


FORCE   AND  CAUSATION  285 

pressed  in  terms  of  a  common  cause,  are  obtainable  in  the 
great  majority  of  observed  cases.  Yet  those  relations  of 
things,  in  which  no  known  formula  will  comprise,  even  in  a 
figurative  way,  the  quantitative  terms  on  which  the  rela- 
tions are  uniformly  established,  are  among  the  most  impor- 
tant and  universal. 

So  far  as  "we  at  present  know,  much  of  the  behavior  of 
physical  bodies  is  dependent  upon  the  "natures"  of  some 
seventy  different  kinds  of  elements,  which,  when  they  are 
brought  sufficiently  close  to  one  another  in  space,  combine 
in  an  indefinite  variety  of  ways  —  though  always  in  obedi- 
ence to  certain  laws  of  number  and  under  uniform  condi- 
tions. Thus  combining,  these  elements  exhibit  ever  new 
and  surprising  physical  qualities.  And  if  they  can  be  "  in- 
fluenced "  to  combine  in  yet  more  complicated  ways,  by 
some  already  existing  arrangement  such  as  belongs  to  the 
living  cell,  the  same  elements  will  do  yet  more  marvellous 
things.  Mere  energy,  —  if  such  a  thing  as  "  mere  "  energy 
were  conceivable,  —  quantitatively  distributed  and  having  its 
law  given  in  terms  of  the  amounts  belonging  here  or  there, 
goes  only  a  little  way  toward  explaining  this  infinite  variety 
to  the  behavior  of  things. 

Illustrations  of  this  necessity  which  experience  imposes, 
for  considering  physical  energy  as  differentiating  its  locality 
and  the  character  of  its  work  according  to  other  ideas  than 
those  of  mere  quantity,  might  be  multiplied  to  any  extent.  It 
is  in  the  field  of  the  new  chemistry  of  explosives  that  we  are 
just  now  obtaining  the  most  impressive,  near-at-hand  exhi- 
bitions of  physical  energy.  But  such  phenomena  cannot  be 
explained  in  accordance  with  the  principle  of  the  conserva- 
tion and  correlation  of  a  gross  amount  of  energy,  without  an 
added  special  regard  to  the  specific  natures  and  relations  of 
the  beings  that  display  the  energy.  That  is  to  say,  the 
energy  "developed"  by  the  explosion  (to  use  a  more  appro- 
priate figure  of  speech),  cannot,  previous  to  the  transaction 


286  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

itself,  be  said  to  be  stored  in  the  beings  that  engage  in  the 
transaction;  neither  is  such  energy  kinetic  so  far  as  any- 
thing is  known  about  the  internal  movements  of  these  be- 
ings. To  illustrate  by  a  single  example :  Certain  compounds 
of  Nitrogen,  Hydrogen,  and  Chlorine  (as  NH2C1  and  NHC12), 
are  explosives ;  while  perhaps  the  most  astonishingly  explo- 
sive of  all  compounds  is  that  of  Nitrogen  and  Chlorine,  NC13. 
Now  Nitrogen  and  Hydrogen  get  along  comfortably  enough 
together,  and  so  do  Chlorine  and  Hydrogen ;  as  in  the  case 
of  NH3,  or  HC1,  and  other  compounds  of  Chlorine,  —  all  of 
which  are  eminently  stable  and  "  safe. "  But  the  discovery 
of  the  explosive  character  of  NC13  was  so  dangerous  an  affair 
that  it  quite  wrecked  the  health  of  the  chemist  who  made  it, 
through  the  state  of  constant  anxiety  in  which  he  was  kept 
by  his  investigations. 

Now  we  do  not  give  any  adequate  explanation  of  the  tre- 
mendous energy  displayed  by  NC13  when  we  merely  speak  of 
it  as  "  stored  "  either  in  the  N  or  in  the  Cl ;  or  when  we  de- 
clare it  to  have  been  "  put  into  "  either  of  them  by  effecting 
this  combination  as  NC13.  The  ultimate  fact  appears  to  be 
simply  this;  somehow  the  natures  of  N  and  of  Cl  are  such 
that,  when  they  are  for  the  time  being  united,  they  easily  part 
company,  and  develop,  in  the  act  of  parting  and  reunion,  an 
enormous  amount  of  energy.  This  idea,  or  rational  explana- 
tion of  this  complex  resultant  of  the  nature  of  N,  of  the  nature 
of  Cl,  and  of  the  natures  of  both  in  their  relations  to  each  and 
to  the  other  elements  with  which  they  unite  on  leaving  each 
other,  is  concealed  by  chemical  science  under  the  figurative 
expression,  —  " chemical  affinities."  But  affinities  are  never 
mere  forces ;  they  are  neither  simple  qualities  nor  compound 
qualities  that  can  be  distributed  ever  anew  with  only  due 
regard  to  the  amount  of  energy  distributed.  "Affinities"  is 
a  word  which  stands  for  forces  that  have  preferences.  Affini- 
ties are  exercised  by  beings  that  have,  belonging  to  them, 
immanent  ideas  in  control  of  the  forces;  and  these  ideas 


FORCE  AND   CAUSATION  287 

dictate  to  the  forces  the  terms  on  which  they  shall  do  their 
specific  amounts  and  kinds  of  work.  And.  without  all  this 
equipment  of  immanent  ideas,  the  behavior  of  things,  chem- 
ically considered,  cannot  be  understood  or  explained. 

Another  illustration  of  this  important  metaphysical  truth 
may  be  found  in  the  behavior  of  every  living  cell  as  it  ap- 
pears under  the  microscope,  and  when  considered  from  the 
modern  chemico-physiological  points  of  view.  From  the 
moment  when  the  cell  is  quickened  (we  will  suppose  it  to  be 
an  egg  of  the  human  species),  it  begins  a  most  mysterious 
process  of  internal,  molecular  differentiation.  In  this  work 
of  differentiation  certain  elements  from  the  male  combine 
with  elements  from  the  female.  Much  more  intricate  and 
unmathematical  than  the  behavior  of  the  molecules  in  the 
formation  of  a  crystal  of  any  particular  type  is  the  behavior 
of  the  elements  which  have  entered  into  this  dual  combina- 
tion. By  the  well-known  processes  of  growth  of  the  individ- 
ual cell,  of  fission,  proliferation,  aggregation,  segregation, 
etc.,  with  the  most  marvellous  display  of  industry  and  in- 
genuity in  overcoming  difficulties  and  in  handling  new  mate- 
rial, these  accumulating  cells  build  up  the  finished  structure 
of  the  human  body.  And  now  the  most  highly  differenti- 
ated, supremely  intricate,  and  consumingly  interesting  of 
molecular  mechanisms  is  completed.  The  completed  struc- 
ture is  scientifically  considered  as  the  resultant  of  construc- 
tive forces  resident  in  the  elements  out  of  which  this 
particular  body  —  the  human  body  —  is  built.  Here  again, 
however,  it  must  be  remembered  that,  to  speak  in  terms  of 
reality,  no  one  entity  of  a  force  can  be  said  either  to  reside 
in  the  entire  structure  or  to  be  distributed  amongst  its  mil- 
lions of  different  parts.  How  then  can  the  conception  which 
regards  energy  simply  as  a  lump  sum,  offering  a  quantita- 
tive problem  to  mathematics,  account  for  the  actual  facts  of 
experience  ? 

But  what,  finally,  is  the  significance  for  a  Theory  of  Real- 


288  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

ity  which  is  lent  by  a  critical  discussion  of  the  category  of 
force  ?  It  seems  to  us  that  this  question  may  be  partially 
and  approximately  answered  in  somewhat  the  following  way. 
In  the  first  place,  no  rational  mind  is  satisfied  with  that 
representation  of  the  actual  physical  world  which  regards  it 
merely  as  a  succession  of  phenomena  of  the  sensuous  order, 
connected  together  by  imaginary  links  of  hypothetical  phe- 
nomena. Physical  science  discloses  a  real  world,  where  the 
ceaseless  play  (or  work)  of  mighty  forces  must  be  invoked  in 
the  interests  of  rational  explanation.  These  forces  actually 
belong  to  the  different  physical  beings  of  this  world  consid- 
ered as  a  total  system ;  whether  these  beings  are  simply  con- 
sidered as  masses,  or  as  molecules  and  atoms ;  and  whether 
the  forces  are  considered  as  the  causes  of  actual  changes  in 
the  external  relations  and  internal  conditions  of  things,  or 
as  potencies  making  possible  such  changes  when  the  circum- 
stances set  free  (or  set  "  at  work  ")  the  forces.  But  the 
changes  actually  effected,  and  the  terms  on  which  we  may 
predict  changes  to  take  place  in  the  future,  are  such  that  an 
ideal  unity  is  obvious  in  this  world  of  many  beings  with 
their  multiform  forces. 

Lotze  has  well  said:  "We  are  only  doing  honor  to  a 
ghost  when  we  dream  of  an  absolutely  nameless  primitive 
force  which,  formless  in  itself  and  consisting  of  an  unnamed 
number  of  constant  amount,  assumes  as  a  trifling  addition 
that  needs  no  explanation  the  changing  names  under  which 
it  is  manifested."  Within  certain  limits,  indeed,  the  unity 
of  the  forces  may  be  figuratively  regarded  as  a  constant  sum, 
—  a  quantity  of  One  Force  which  somehow  gets  stored  in  the 
different  beings  of  the  world,  or  passed  over  from  one  to  an- 
other of  them.  But  even  thus  we  are  compelled  to  recognize 
varied  forms  of  relation;  several  kinds  of  force,  and  many 
ways  employed  by  the  different  beings,  of  displaying  and  de- 
veloping their  peculiarities  of  force.  The  world  becomes 
thereby  a  much  higher  and  richer  kind  of  unity.  Indeed, 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  289 

the  bewildering  complexity  of  the  relations,  and  the  new- 
ness of  the  phenomena  which  the  progress  of  science  dis- 
covers, bear  some  direct  relation  to  the  advancing  high 
character  of  that  unity  which  our  thought  ascribes  to  this 
complexity.  When  the  Being  of  the  World  is  regarded  from 
the  point  of  view  of  its  substantial  causality,  it  appears  as  a 
Unity  of  Force  that  differentiates  itself,  in  respect  of  kinds 
and  relations,  so  as  to  produce  a  marvellous  and  bewilder- 
ing complexity.  Yet  over  all  this  complexity  there  rules  so 
much  of  adherence  to  form  and  to  law  as  that  the  result  is  a 
Unity  of  the  World  which  is  far  more  than  a  mere  unity  of 
force.  But  this  is  to  endow  the  World-force  with  manifold 
controlling  Ideas. 

Translated  into  terms  of  an  indubitable  experience,  what 
is  the  Reality  that  corresponds  to  this  description  of  the 
world  in  terms  of  force,  and  of  the  conservation  and  mani- 
fold correlation  of  physical  energy  ?  Every  "  moment "  of 
this  description  is  an  unmistakable  factor  in  the  self -known 
Self  of  the  knower.  The  description  is  the  picture  of  a  Will, 
differentiating  itself  according  to  its  preferences,  under  the 
control  of  forms  and  laws  —  or  immanent  Ideas.  Here,  in- 
deed, our  theory  anticipates  itself  somewhat;  for  the  sig- 
nificance of  so-called  "forms  and  laws"  in  the  world  of 
concrete  realities  still  awaits  critical  examination.  But 
that  forces  which  correlate  themselves  in  kind  and  degree 
with  one  another,  and  which  thus  manage  to  construct  a 
unity  that  is  indescribably  rich  in  variety,  are  significant 
of  One  Will,  manifesting  its  immanent  ideas  in  many  ways 
while  still  retaining  its  own  identity,  there  can  be  no  man- 
ner of  doubt.  Or,  if  this  be  not  true,  the  figures  of  speech 
employed  by  human  science,  as  well  as  by  man's  ordinary 
knowledge  of  the  world  of  things  in  terms  of  force,  are  with- 
out intelligible  meaning.  The  movements  of  physical  objects, 
like  the  gestures  of  the  actor  of  a  pantomime,  reveal  the  Will 
and  the  Ideas  behind ;  or  else  they  reveal  nothing  at  all. 

19 


290  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

In  discussing  the  preceding  categories  the  essence  of  the 
conception  of  Cause  has  been  discovered.  This  conception 
is  that  of  a  being  in  action,  when  so  related  to  another  be- 
ing, as  that  the  action  of  the  one  is  followed  by  changes  in 
the  external  relations  or  internal  condition  of  the  other. 
Bluntly  expressed,  it  is  the  conception  of  one  being  doing 
something  to  another  being.  Thus  construed,  its  genesis 
and  significance  have  already  been,  for  the  present,  suffi- 
ciently explained,  Even  in  this  earlier  and  cruder  form, 
the  conception  is  complex.  But  the  so-called  "  law  of  caus- 
ation," together  with  the  assumptions  and  thoughts  enter- 
ing into  it,  as  these  are  held  by  the  modern  sciences  of 
nature,  is  yet  more  complex.  Ideas  of  quantity  and  of  num- 
ber, and  especially  the  thought  of  a  uniform  and  "  self-con- 
sistent mode  of  behavior,"  enter  into  these  more  refined 
forms  of  this  conception.  Yet  its  roots,  even  in  the  most 
refined  of  its  forms  of  application,  are  deep  in  the  experi- 
ence which  has  already  been  described  as  that  of  "  being  a 
substantial  cause." 

One's  total  experience  with  things,  as  consisting  of  ob- 
served changes  both  in  one's  self  and  in  them,  and  of  self- 
felt  but  inhibited  activity,  contains  all  the  elements  for  an 
empirical  apprehension  of  the  causal  relation.  Indeed,  this 
experience  is  best  described  as  a  knowledge  of  doing  some- 
thing to  some  other  being,  and  also  of  having  something 
done  to  one  by  that  other  being.  The  cognition  is  that  of  a 
commerce  of  beings  which  stand  to  each  other  in  the  relation 
of  substantial  causes.  Beyond  this  neither  scientific  curi- 
osity nor  metaphysical  analysis  can  take  the  mind  of  man. 
This  experience  of  being  a  substantial  cause  under  variously 
changing  relations  is  itself,  the  rather,  the  experience  out  of 
which  all  man's  scientific  and  metaphysical  explanations  are 
actually  derived  and  without  which  human  knowledge  would 
not  be  what  it  actually  is. 

Philosophical  theories  of   causality  like  those  of  Hume, 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  291 

Kant,  and  Mill,  as  Romanes  pointed  out,  run  counter  to, 
and  are  confuted  by,  the  very  objectivity  of  the  causal  rela- 
tion which  all  the  physical  and  natural  sciences  both  assume 
as  a  fundamental  principle  of  their  procedure,  and  also  con- 
stantly confirm  by  all  their  advance  in  power  to  predict  and 
in  discovery.  Growth  of  experience  along  the  lines  of  re- 
flective thinking  and  under  the  guidance  of  the  principle  of 
sufficient  reason  is  necessary  in  order  to  generate  the  com- 
plete conception  of  causation,  —  especially  as  this  concep- 
tion is  employed  in  the  higher  stages  of  mental  development. 
This  growth  is  effected  in  the  manner  well  described  by 
Wundt l :  "  With  the  empirical  apprehension  of  a  causal  re- 
lation there  is,  therefore,  uniformly  connected  the  demand 
that  the  same  correspond  to  a  logical  relation;  since  the 
whole  causal  connection  of  nature  is  considered,  under  the 
presupposition  of  certain  general  principles  and  originally 
given  facts,  as  a  unitary,  logical  system  of  grounds  and  con- 
sequences." As  we  have  elsewhere  shown,2  however,  this 
"  demand  "  is  itself  the  complex  and  ever  developing  result 
of  man's  reflective  interpretation  of  his  collective  experi- 
ence. It  consists  in  finding  out  the  rationale  of  the  behavior 
of  things,  with  a  growing  persuasion  which  is  more  and 
more  justified  by  accumulating  experience,  that  things  have 
a  rationale.  It  is  a  finding  out  of  the  mind  of  things,  as; 
their  mind  is  shown  by  their  customary  modes  of  behavior. 
In  its  last  result,  it  is  the  strong  and  well  fortified  convic- 
tion that,  somehow,  things  are  all  of  one  mind,  since  they 
manage  to  limit  and  to  restrict  one  another  without  destroy- 
ing each  other  completely ;  indeed,  in  some  large  and  com- 
prehensive way,  things  serve  certain  common  ends,  and  so 
build  up  the  unity  of  a  world-system. 

So  indefinite  and  complex  a  conclusion  as  this  involves, 
of  course,  several  conceptions  which  still  remain  to  be  ex- 

1  System  der  Philosophie,  p.  302. 

2  "  The  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason,"  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  chap.  x. 


292  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

amined  critically,  before  they  take  their  place  in  a  completed 
theory  of  reality.  In  closing  the  discussion  of  the  category 
of  Force,  it  is  well  to  notice  again  carefully  the  relation, 
both  in  thought  and  in  reality,  of  the  moments  which  human 
thinking  assigns  to  "substantiality"  and  to  "causality,"  re- 
spectively. The  substantial  being  of  any  thing  is  thought 
of  as  requiring  some  principle,  belonging  to  it,  that  shall 
prevent  the  thing  from  going,  in  its  changes,  outside  of  a 
certain  prescribed  circle ;  or  —  what  is  the  same  conception 
—  that  shall  compel  the  thing  to  change  its  states  in  a  cer- 
tain prescribed  order  (according  to  its  so-called  "nature," 
or  immanent  idea).  Thus  A  must  become  only  Aa,  A^  Ay, 
As  .  .  .  Av\  or  else  it  ceases  to  be  the  substance  A.  The 
causal  activity  and  passivity  of  any  being,  however,  —  its 
standing  in  causal  relations,  —  appears  when  any  particular 
series  of  changes  in  A  is  regarded  as  dependency  connected 
with  another  series  of  changes  in  some  other  being,  B  (as, 
for  example,  BA,  B&  By,  B^  .  .  .  Bv).  All  such  series  of 
dependent  changes,  for  their  complete  explanation  or  refer- 
ence to  the  complex  causes  which  account  for  them,  require 
an  answer  to  three  connected  problems.  These  concern, 
first,  the  nature  of  A\  second,  the  nature  of  B;  and,  third, 
the  relations  at  present  maintaining  themselves  between  A 
and  B.  But  the  only  way  approximately  to  solve  two  of 
these  three  problems  is  to  discover  the  uniform  modes  of  the 
behavior  of  both  A  and  .#;  indeed,  uniformity  in  the  modes 
of  behavior  of  any  thing  affords  the  only  answer  to  an  in- 
quiry after  the  "nature,"  or  the  "essence"  of  that  thing. 

Now,  finally,  the  thought  recurs  that  neither  J.,  nor  B, 
nor  any  other  being  in  the  world,  is  ever  known  as  behav- 
ing according  to  its  own  nature,  without  at  the  same  time 
paying  attention  to  the  relations  which  it  sustains  to  the  na- 
ture of  other  beings.  That  is  to  say,  man's  growing  knowl- 
edge of  the  world  is  a  network  of  more  or  less  clear  and 
definite  causal  relations  amongst  the  different  beings  of  the 


FORCE  AND  CAUSATION  293 

world.  Viewed  in  its  subjective  aspect,  this  fact  shows  how 
the  variety  of  otherwise  disconnected  and  chaotic  items  of 
experience  are  constructed  by  the  intellect  into  a  system  of 
interdependent  changes  in  the  external  relations  and  in- 
ternal conditions  of  its  objects.  In  spite  of  the  constant 
presence  of  many  items  of  change  which  refuse  to  show  the 
desired  "uniformity  of  behavior,"  human  science  is  growing 
firm  in  the  conviction  that  this  limitation  belongs  to  our 
human  points  of  view  and  human  powers  of  cognition,  and 
not  to  the  nature  of  the  objects  themselves.  Viewed  in  its 
ontological  aspect,  all  the  growth  of  man's  cognitive  experience 
reveals  the  Being  of  the  World  as  a  Unity  of  Force,  that  is 
constantly  distributing  itself  amongst  the  different  beings  of  the 
world  so  as  to  bestow  on  them  a  temporary  quasi-independence, 
while  always  keeping  them  in  dependent  inter-relations,  for  the 
realization  of  its  own  immanent  ideas. 


CHAPTER  XI 

MEASURE  AND  QUANTITY 

IT  is  a  well-grounded  boast  of  the  physical  sciences  that 
they  are  able  to  furnish  an  increasingly  accurate  knowledge 
of  the  nature  and  transactions  of  things.  This  ability  they 
chiefly  owe  to  their  use  of  the  arm  of  mathematics ;  by  its 
aid  they  are  constantly  approximating  more  exact  forms  of 
statement,  and  are  also  conquering  new  fields  of  inquiry  in 
accordance  with  the  most  approved  scientific  methods. 
For,  — to  recur  to  the  symbolism  employed  at  the  close  of 
the  last  chapter  —  whenever  A  and  B  are  "  causally  related  " 
(that  is,  are  dependency  connected  as  respects  the  changes 
they  undergo),  the  complex  problem  they  afford  is  solved 
only  by  stating  the  exact  co-efficients,  a,  /3,  7,  S,  etc.,  for 
both  A  and  B,  and  also  the  value  of  the  X  which  defines  the 
uniform  conditions  under  which  they  display  these  coeffi- 
cients. For  example,  the  constitution  of  water  from  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  gases  is  scientifically  established,  when  we 
know  how  much  of  0,  and  how  much  of  H,  must  be  made  to 
act  upon  each  other ;  and  also  under  what  definite  relations 
this  reciprocal  action  takes  place.  The  more  exact  our 
measurement  and  enumeration  of  all  the  complex  of  changes 
which  actually  occur  in  the  production  of  H20  become,  the 
more  is  our  science  glorified.  Measuring  and  numbering 
belong,  therefore,  to  the  very  essence  of  the  method  of  phys- 
ical science. 

But  measuring  and  numbering  are  mental  activities  and 
mental  achievements ;  to  measure  and  to  number  is,  indeed, 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  295 

a  very  large  part  of  what  it  is  to  know  —  in  a  way  to  satisfy 
scientific  demands.  Physical  science,  as  the  knowledge  of 
things  and  of  their  transactions,  assumes  it  to  be  beyond  ques- 
tion that  things  are  actually  measurable  and  numerable. 

The  marked  success  of  the  more  definitively  physical  sci- 
ences has  combined  with  other  reasons  to  encourage  the  use 
of  the  mathematical  method  by  other  more  or  less  closely 
allied  sciences.  Modern  chemistry  is  distinguished  from 
the  alchemy  out  of  which  it  grew,  in  no  other  way  more  ob- 
viously than  by  its  devotion  to  the  niceties  of  measurement 
and  of  counting.  Its  most  universal  "  law, "  like  the  law  of 
gravitation,  is  designed  to  serve  as  a  general  formula  for 
reckoning  those  quantitative  relations  of  things,  in  which 
the  explanation  of  both  their  more  obvious  and  their  occult 
qualities  must  be  found.  To  be  sure,  chemistry  does  not 
assume  to  tell  us  why  NH3  and  HC1  are  safe,  but  NC13  is 
highly  dangerous,  except  by  referring  to  the  u  affinities"  of 
N,  H,  and  Cl,  with  one  another  and  with  other  elements  in 
the  environment.  Why  these  elements  have  such  and  no 
other  affinities,  our  science  is  forced  to  regard  as,  at  pres- 
ent, an  unanswerable  question.  In  general  —  to  use  another 
example  —  why  H20  have  the  affinities,  so  stable  and  mani- 
foldly useful,  which  they  exhibit  in  this  combination;  and 
why  the  physical  properties  of  the  compound  are  such  as 
they  actually  are,  etc.  —  these  are  questions  which  teleology, 
and  not  chemistry,  chiefly  essays  to  answer.  Meantime, 
refinements  of  measuring  and  numbering  are  the  delight  and 
the  boast  of  modern  chemical  science.  And  apparently  the 
hope  of  her  most  advanced  students  is  that  she  will  some  day 
take  her  place  in  this  respect,  among  the  most  complete  of 
the  physical  sciences. 

It  is  also  proposed  to  introduce  to  biology  more  exactness 
through  an  improved  use  of  the  mathematical  method.  Psy- 
chology, too,  is  showing  a  swelling  ambition  to  take  rank 
among  the  physical  sciences,  by  use  of  their  method  for 


296  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

counting  and  measuring  the  various  psychoses  and  their  ele- 
ments. We  have  here  something  more  than  a  renewal  of 
Herbart's  proud  claim  to  constitute  this  as  a  natural  sci- 
ence, "  neu  gegrundet  ayf  Erfahrung,  Metaphysik  und  MatJie- 
matik."  For,  in  the  "new  psychology,"  the  " Metaphysic " 
is  to  be  left  out,  and  the  "Mathematic"  is  to  be,  not  an  a 
priori  theory  of  combinations  of  the  Vorstellungen  on  the 
positive  and  negative  sides  of  a  zero-point,  but  a  col- 
lection of  exact  formulas  solidly  placed  upon  an  inductive 
basis. 

No  conclusion,  then,  can  be  more  certain  than  this;  if 
things  are  not  "  by  nature  "  and  "  in  reality  "  measurable  and 
numerable,  modern  science  has  little  real  truth  to  tell;  it  is 
in  no  essential  way  distinguishable  from  the  merely  logical 
arrangement  of  a  system  of  pure  mathematical  concep- 
tions. We  have  never  held  the  opinion  which  refuses  to 
such  generalizations  as  cannot  state  themselves  in  terms  of 
number  and  quantity  all  claim  to  the  title  "  science  " ;  nor 
do  we  for  a  moment  believe  that  the  numerable  and  measur- 
able aspect  of  things  is  the  only  aspect  open  to  the  cognitive 
powers  of  man.  Nature  may,  indeed,  be  made  to  step  upon 
our  scales  and  be  weighed,  or  to  stand  up  against  our  meas- 
uring rod  and  have  it  applied  to  her.  But  she  is  often  coy 
about  this ;  and  she  does  not  like  to  be  admired  simply  as 
having  so  many  pounds  avoirdupois,  or  as  being  so  many 
centimetres  broad  and  long.  Like  the  human  Self,  who 
constructs  her  in  his  own  image,  because  he  was  at  the  first 
constructed  in  her  image,  Nature  has  an  inner  life,  an  a3s- 
thetical  and  spiritual  meaning  to  reveal.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  denial  that  things  are  somehow  in  reality  what 
science  with  all  its  elaborate  and  refined  quantitative  esti- 
mates affirms  them  to  be,  invalidates  this  science  and  ob- 
scures one  side  of  Nature.  When  Plato  proclaimed  God  the 
great  geometer,  the  philosopher  was  doubtless  in  some  sort 
true  to  the  inner  being  and  meaning  of  the  world ;  although 


MEASURE  AND  QUANTITY  297 

it  does  not  follow  that  God  is  nothing  other  than  a  great 
geometer. 

It  is  impossible  even  to  talk  about  things,  or  to  deal  with 
them  in  the  most  essential  and  practical  ways,  without  meas- 
uring and  counting  them.  What  our  language  thus  empha- 
sizes is  not  primarily  the  measuring  and  counting  faculty  of 
the  mind,  but  the  measurable  and  numerable  nature  of 
things.  And,  of  course,  every  man's  knowledge  of,  and  in- 
tercourse with,  his  fellows,  is  dependent  upon  some  sort  of 
a  conception  as  to  the  nature  of  unity,  and  as  well  upon 
some  sort  of  recognition  given  to  "  another  "  as  belonging  to 
the  same  kind.  Measuring  and  numbering  of  things  are  in- 
separably connected  also  with  all  distinctions  between  meum 
and  tuum,  and  with  all  commercial  values  and  commercial 
transactions.  But  there  is  little  need  to  illustrate  this  fact 
of  all  human  experience ;  without  some  sort  of  numbering  and 
measuring  knowledge  itself  is  impossible,  because  no  object 
is  existent  for  knowledge.  Cognition  itself  is  essentially, 
though  by  no  means  exclusively,  a  process  of  numbering  and 
measuring.  In  order,  then,  to  understand  these  categories, 
the  psychology  of  their  genesis  and  development  must  show 
us  on  what  mental  activities  and  mental  postulates  they  rest. 
But  on  the  basis  of  such  psychological  analysis,  metaphysi- 
cal criticism  must  also  try  to  discover  what  these  categories 
reveal  as  to  the  real  Being  of  the  World.  Here,  then,  are 
two  allied  problems  to  be  solved :  How  is  it  that  the  human 
mind  comes  to  measure  and  number  the  things  of  its  univer- 
sal experience  with  such  confidence  in  the  validity  of  these 
processes  —  the  applicability  of  them  to  Reality  ?  and,  What 
sort  of  a  Reality  must  that  be  to  which  the  measuring  and 
numbering  activities  of  the  human  mind,  in  so  far  as  these 
enter  into  all  its  experience  with  things,  can  be  applied  ?  The 
answer  to  the  former  of  these  two  questions  leads  up  to  the 
answer  of  the  latter.  The  answer  of  the  latter  is  an  integral 
part  of  a  systematic  metaphysics. 


298  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

It  is  the  concrete  beings  of  the  world,  known  as  actually 
existent  in  space  and  time,  that  are  measured  and  num- 
bered. Quantity  and  number  belong  to  these  concrete  be- 
ings as  essential  characteristics  of  their  being  at  all, — to 
their  qualities,  their  changes,  and  their  relations,  under  all 
the  manifold  formal  conditions  of  both  the  temporal  and  the 
spatial  order.  In  speaking  of  things  as  possessed  of  differ- 
ent kinds  and  degrees  of  force,  and  in  applying  to  them  the 
principle  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  energy,  we 
are  obliged  either  to  employ  or  to  imply  the  categories  of 
quantity  and  of  number.  Particularly  close  is  the  relation 
between  this  pair  of  twin  categories  and  the  categories  of 
space  and  time.  All  spatial  measurement  rests  on  the  ex- 
istence of  time,  —  or,  the  rather,  on  the  enduring  existence 
"  in  time  "  of  the  thing  that  is  measured.  All  estimate  of 
extensive  magnitudes  is  spatial  measuring.  Even  Percep- 
tion of  motion,  or  of  change  in  spatial  relations,  is  impos- 
sible without  an  active  measurement  taking  place.  We  can 
apprehend  clearly  neither  quantitative  spatial  qualities  nor 
spatial  relations  without  applying  some  standard  of  measure- 
ment, and  counting  the  number  of  the  applications  made  in 
the  mastery  of  the  complete  dimensions  of  the  thing  or  of  its 
distance  from  other  things.  All  such  apprehension  of  things 
and  of  their  relations  is,  of  necessity,  subject  to  the  formal 
categories  of  space  and  time. 

From  the  obscurity  and  confusion  of  the  dawn  of  knowl- 
edge, in  the  individual  and  in  the  race,  emerge  the  twin 
conceptions,  quantity  and  number,  hand  in  hand.  In  the 
development  of  the  majority  of  minds  they  never  get  far  into 
the  fields  of  a  sun-clear  and  consistent  system.  But  in 
certain  minds,  conceptions  of  quantity  and  number  become 
so  articulated  and  unfolded  as  to  form  a  logical  whole, 
unmatched  by  any  other  kind  of  human  knowledge,  for 
tenacity,  clearness,  and  consistency.  Such  an  evolution  of 
"  pure  "  mathematics  is  one  of  the  most  astonishing  and  sig- 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  299 

nificant  achievements  of  human  reason.  By  the  masters  of 
this  system  the  uninitiated  are  assured  that  their  demonstra- 
tions of  what  must  be,  if  only  something  else  that  is  numer- 
ahle  and  measurable  be  taken  for  granted,  have  a  cogency 
which  no  rational  mind  can  resist;  and  yet  these  demon- 
strations concern  matters  so  unlike  any  entities  or  relations 
of  ordinary  experience  that  not  fifty  men  on  the  face  of  the 
globe  can  even  comprehend  them.  No  one  of  us  —  writer  or 
readers  —  alas !  can  hope  to  be  of  this  privileged  number. 
But,  as  students  of  metaphysics,  we  can  ask :  What  has  such 
a  wonderful  network  of  conceptions  to  tell  us  touching  the 
Nature  of  Reality  ? 

The  psychological  genesis  and  development  of  the  concep- 
tion of  quantity,  and  the  way  that  this  conception  is  gained 
and  grows  by  the  activity  of  measuring,  affords  a  most  inter- 
esting and  significant  study.1  A  brief  notice  of  several  im- 
portant points  will  suffice  for  the  present  purpose.  The 
fundamental  fact  of  experience  involved  in  all  such  concep- 
tions is  this;  there  are  variations  in  the  "how-much"  of 
our  psychoses,  and  the  intellect  actively  discriminates,  asso- 
ciates, and  compares  the  psychoses  as  regarded  in  this  aspect 
of  their  change.  That  mental  processes,  as  such,  do  vary 
quantitatively,  is  as  primary  and  incontestable  a  fact  of  ex- 
perience as  is  the  other  closely-related  fact,  that  they  vary 
in  respect  of  content  or  complex  quality.  The  view  which 
regards  all  measurement  as  fundamentally  applicable  only 
to  thing-objects,  and  as  subsequently  applied  in  a  purely 
figurate  way  to  psychoses,  reverses  the  order  of  procedure 
in  the  evolution  of  mental  life.  These  most  primitive  quan- 
titative variations  of  sense-consciousness  are  probably,  how- 
ever, variations  of  intensity  and  not  originally  of  "  extensity  " 
or  "massiveness. "  But  the  admission  of  the  claim  put  for- 
ward by  some  psychologists,  that  a  sort  of  obscure  and  un- 

1  On  this  compare  the  monographs  of  Nichols,  °  The  Psychology  of  Time," 
and  "  Number  and  Space." 


300  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

measured  "bigness"  belongs,  natively,  to  all  modifications- 
of  sense-consciousness,  would  not  change  the  bearing  of  this 
experience  upon  our  metaphysics  of  quantity.  The  impor- 
tant point  for  a  Theory  of  Reality  to  notice  is  this :  the  dif- 
ferent pulses  of  that  stream  of  consciousness  we  come  to 
know  as  the  Self  do  actually  vary  in  the  intensities  belong- 
ing to  them.  The  life  of  the  Self  does  "  in  reality  "  rise  and 
fall,  increase  and  diminish,  in  the  amount  of  that  being 
which  it,  by  the  grasp  of  consciousness,  knows  itself  to  have. 
Otherwise  expressed :  The  Being  of  the  World  actually  vouch- 
safes to  you  and  to  me,  at  different  moments  of  our  life  in  time, 
differing  amounts  of  its  own  being. 

Furthermore,  the  mind  is  immediately  aware  of  this  vari- 
ation in  the  intensities  of  its  own  psychoses.  By  activity  of 
the  same  discriminating  intellect  by  which  we  become  aware 
of  all  changes  in  the  stream  of  consciousness,  we  discern 
these  alterations  of  intensity  in  the  different  temporal  por- 
tions of  this  stream.  This  more  primitive  measurement  is 
obscure  and  indefinite ;  it  is  only  a  vague  awareness  of  more 
or  less  of  the  similar,  when  the  present  is  compared  with  the 
just  passing,  or  with  the  now  expected,  phase  of  conscious- 
ness. Long  before  the  infant  can  "  put  its  toe  into  the  pain," 
it  discovers  and  meets  with  characteristic  expectation,  or 
retrospect,  the  swelling  or  the  subsiding  of  the  pain.  These 
changes  of  intensity  are  for  it  the  important  thing,  and  not 
the  exact  place  in  which  to  locate  its  pain.  These  varying 
"feeling-tones"  which  emphasize  its  interest  in  the  waxing 
and  waning  of  the  pressure-sensations,  or  the  sensations  of 
sound  or  of  light,  furnish  an  attractive  point  of  regard  for 
the  earliest  discriminating  activity. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  the  steps  of  that  psychological 
development  by  which  the  vague  and  indefinite  quantita- 
tive measurement  of  closely  approximate  psychoses  becomes 
a  vague  and  indefinite  measurement  of  the  extension,  the 
forces,  and  the  spatial  relations  of  things.  The  history  of 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  301 

these  steps  involves  all  of  that  marvellous  and  fundamentally 
inexplicable  experience  by  which  the  mind  obtains  the  clear 
knowledge  of  a  world  in  which  the  Self  exists  as  separate 
from,  and  yet  related  to,  an  environment  of  many  self -like 
and  non-self-like  things.  In  all  this  history  it  is  the  growth 
of  skill  in  discriminating  the  minutest  differences  of  quan- 
tity in  our  own  psychoses  which  fixes  the  limitations  for  all 
our  actual  measurements  of  real  things.  It  is  practice  in 
such  discrimination  which  guarantees  my  friend,  the  professor 
of  physics,  when  he  assures  me  that  he  can  with  unaided  eye 
place  a  spider's  web  more  exactly  in  the  middle  between  two 
others  than  is  possible  by  using  any  micrometrical  instru- 
ment. When  the  physicist  uses  any  instrument  for  measure- 
ment, what  does  he  employ  as  the  ultimate  standard  for  his 
knowledge  of  relations  of  quantity  ?  Only  the  same  discrim- 
inating consciousness  which,  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, can  measure  with  amazing  accuracy  changes  in  its 
own  phases, — quantitatively  considered.  For,  as  Volkmann 
admirably  observes,1  the  magnitude  of  the  subjective  spatial 
series  is  not  directly  comparable  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
object-thing ;  and  our  estimate  of  magnitude  always  becomes 
uncertain,  just  as  soon  as  the  opportunity  to  compare  it  with 
the  familiar  magnitudes  belonging  to  our  sensation-complexes 
is  removed.  Moreover,  a  great  variety  of  changeable  inter- 
ests and  forms  of  emotion  furnish  impulses,  checks,  and 
guides,  in  the  development  of  all  mental  measurement  and 
in  the  consequent  conceptions  of  magnitude.  Psychologically 
considered,  then,  all  actual  measurement  of  real  quantities  con- 
sists in  the  self-appreciation  of  the  varying  amounts  of  the  own- 
life  of  the  Self. 

But  in  respect  of  this  category  of  quantity  as  of  all  the 
other  categories,  the  mind  cannot  persuade  itself  that  the 
conception  has  a  merely  subjective  origin  and  applicability. 
For  here,  as  in  all  other  use  of  human  faculties,  we  speedily 

1  Lehrbuch  der  Psychologie,  II.,  p.  99  f. 


302  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

cease  to  regard  the  subjective  changes  as  belonging  to  the 
known  reality,  and  concentrate  attention  upon  making  gains 
of  verifiable  objective  knowledge.  How  nicely  can  one  dis- 
tinguish differences  of  intensity  in  the  sensations,  under  pre- 
cisely such  favorable  or  unfavorable  circumstances  ?  —  this  is 
a  question  for  the  psychological  laboratory.  The  world  of 
men  will  never  come  to  take  much  interest  in  such  a  ques- 
tion for  its  own  sake.  But  how  much  does  this  material 
shrink  under  so  many  degrees  of  cold  ?  is  the  question  of  the 
builder  of  houses  and  bridges.  What  are  the  actual  atomic 
weights  of  the  different  elements  ?  is  the  inquiry  of  chemical 
science.  It  is  the  measurement  of  things,  not  of  sensations, 
which  is  of  most  practical  and  theoretical  importance  in  the 
estimate  of  men.  Such  measurement  cannot  be  accomplished 
without  reference  to  some  objective  standard;  and  the  use 
of  such  an  objective  standard,  with  the  assumptions  and  the 
arguments  involved,  with  its  temporary  failures  and  its  bril- 
liant successes,  is  full  of  most  important  lessons  for  the 
metaphysician. 

The  first  truth  to  be  noticed  in  considering  the  nature  of 
all  objective  measurement  is  this :  such  measurement  is  al- 
ways an  affair  of  relations ;  it  is  a  relating  activity  on  the 
mind's  part,  which  implies,  however,  some  sort  of  a  correla- 
tion belonging  to  the  real  being  and  actual  arrangement  of 
the  things  measured.  In  its  earlier  forms  this  objective 
measurement  is  a  vague  and  uncertain  affair;  it  is  chiefly 
adapted  to,  and  enforced  by,  the  simpler  practical  ends  of 
life.  The  groping  of  the  infant  in  its  effort  to  discover  the 
correct  reach  of  the  hand,  which  will  bring  to  its  grasp  the 
coveted  object,  is  an  example  in  place  here.  In  all  its 
developing  experience  with  things,  the  child's  mind  is  "siz- 
ing them  up  "  —  if  such  a  phrase  may  be  pardoned ;  it  is 
discovering  whether  they  will  fit  its  mouth,  fill  its  hand, 
inclose  or  match  one  another ;  and  how  far  one  must  creep 
or  walk  to  obtain  possession  of  them.  So  far  as  these  more 


MEASURE  AND  QUANTITY  303 

primitive  measurements  are  accomplished  by  the  eye,  there 
is  comparatively  little  motif  to  introduce  the  conception  of 
force  as  the  "stuff"  which  is  being  measured.  But  with 
the  knowledge  of  things  that  colnes  through  the  tactual,  mus- 
cular, and  joint  sensations,  the  case  is  not  the  same.  In 
these  ways  the  infantile  physicist  is  constantly  measuring 
his  force  against  the  resisting  or  the  active  forces  of  things. 
Every  time  he  throws  a  stone  or  a  ball,  or  wrestles  with  his 
playfellow,  he  gets  a  new  lesson  in  popular  dynamics.  And 
few  things  are  of  more  vital  interest  to  him  than  the  correct- 
ness of  his  calculation  of  the  amounts  of  forces  which  nature 
has  assigned  to  the  different  objects  of  his  daily  experience. 
Thus  his  quantitative  calculations  become  surprisingly  exact, 
whenever  the  problem  concerns  merely  somewhat  indefinite 
increase  or  diminution  in  the  amounts  of  the  things  in  which 
he  is  interested.  This  fact  of  experience  corresponds  with 
the  well-known  psycho-physical  law  which  controls  the  mind's 
appreciation  of  the  varying  quantities  of  sensation-conscious- 
ness, the  use  of  mental  images  of  past  sensations  as  standards 
of  measurement,  and  the  conditions  which  favor  or  hinder 
the  exactness  of  such  appreciation  in  particular  instances. 
Great  sensitiveness  in  these  more  primitive  quantitative 
estimates,  in  the  case  of  children  and  of  savages,  for  a  long 
time  precedes  the  self-conscious  and  rational  affair  of  learn- 
ing to  count. 

Let  it  be  noticed,  also,  what  are  the  things  that  are  meas- 
ured—  the  existent  "that-which,"  to  which  the  measuring 
process  is  thus  naively  applied.  That  which  is  thus  meas- 
ured is  threefold.  It  is,  first,  the  extension  of  things  — 
their  size,  as  relative  to  one  another  and  to  our  purposes  re- 
garding them ;  second,  it  is  the  distance  of  things,  as  rela- 
tive to  us  (where  we  are)  and  to  one  another,  and  as  bearing 
upon  the  actual  or  expected  relations  existing  amongst  them, 
and  between  us  and  them ;  third,  it  is  the  forces  of  things, 
as  the  hidden  causes  of  the  actual  or  expected  changes  of 


304  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

these  relations.  The  empirical  basis  for  the  doctrine  of 
geometry  and  of  mass  comes  from  the  first  and  second  of  the 
three ;  the  theory  of  dynamics  and  the  law  of  the  conserva- 
tion and  correlation  of  energy,  comes  from  the  third.  But 
all  three  forms  of  measurement  are  bound  together  and,  as 
it  were,  made  available  for  both  practical  and  theoretical 
purposes  by  the  universal  fact  of  motion.  Psychologically 
considered,  it  is  only  with  moving  organs  that  we  measure ; 
active  measuring  is  a  function  which  requires  the  entire 
self,  —  imagination,  intellect,  feeling,  will,  —  dominating 
and  guiding  the  organism  under  the  impulse  to  secure  certain 
ends.  Were  you  and  I  not  real  beings,  organically  somehow 
connected  with  the  changing  texture  of  the  universe  of  being, 
so  as  both  to  change  it  and  to  be  changed  by  it,  we  should 
never  "  measure  "  ourselves  or  other  things.  Geometry,  phy- 
sics, etc.,  — all  measurement  is  born  as  the  child  of  a  mind 
that  is  in  living  commerce  with  things.  "The  limits  of 
space,"  it  has  been  well  said,  "are  for  us  simply  the  limits 
of  possible  motion  of  a  material  body. " 1  This  space  of  three 
dimensions,  in  which  all  actual  known  motions  occur,  and 
all  conceivable  motions  must  be  imagined,  is  that  in  which 
the  axioms  of  the  Euclidean  plane  geometry,  as  popularly 
conceived  of,  are  true.  It  is  our  experience  with  this  actual 
complex  differentiation  of  reality  in  which  our  conceptions 
of  measure  and  quantity  are  matured. 

Such  vague  and  unchecked  measurement  as  has  just  been 
described  does  not,  however,  form  a  satisfactory  basis  for  a 
true  quantitative  science  of  things.  Although  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  nine-tenths  of  man's  actual  cognitive  experi- 
ence with  things  —  their  sizes,  distances,  weights,  forces, 
and  whatever  belonging  to  them  is  measurable  —  is  of  this 
vague  and  unrecorded  sort.  Yet  how  accurate  it  can  be 
trained  to  be;  every  letter-sorter  on  the  flying  mail-car, 

1  See  the  Presidential  Address  of  Professor  Simon  Newcomb,  Bulletin  of  the 
Am.  Mathematical  Society,  2d  Series,  vol.  iv.  No.  5. 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  305 

every  skilled  huntsman,  or  expert  ball-player,  demonstrates 
as  truly  as  does  the  physicist  with  his  superb  and  justifiable 
confidence  in  his  unaided  visual  discriminations.  Nor 
must  it  be  forgotten  that  a  very  subtle  and  profound  theory 
of  rational  correlation  between  the  Self  and  Things,  with  an 
assumed  uniformity  in  obedience  to  law,  and  a  steady  confor- 
mity to  ideal  ends  on  the  part  of  both  is  implied  in  this 
natural  use  of  the  category  of  quantity. 

It  has  been  said  that  all  measurement  is  relative.  Now 
"the  relative"  implies  the  existence  of  a  standard  and  its 
application  to  a  number  of  objects.  In  the  more  primitive 
forms  of  measurement  the  standard  is  some  mental  image, 
revivablc  —  so  it  is  assumed  —  in  a  fairly  constant  way.  But 
the  more  purely  subjective  means  are  found  to  be,  as  might 
be  expected,  variable  and  deceptive ;  and  although  they  may 
be  rendered  exceedingly  accurate  and  serviceable  for  certain 
individualistic  and  special  kinds  of  practice,  they  are  not 
trustworthy  as  commonly  accepted  standards  for  human 
intercourse.  Nor  will  subjective  standards  do  at  all  as  a 
foundation  on  which  to  erect  the  superstructure  of  mathe- 
matical and  physical  science.  The  physicist  can  handle  his 
spider-webs  better  without  than  with  the  use  of  a  rule  marked 
off  in  fractions  of  millimetres,  but  he  cannot  be  trusted  as  a 
sorter  of  letters ;  and  neither  he  nor  the  mail  agent  is  willing 
to  purchase  his  ell  of  cloth  by  having  it  measured  on  the 
dealer's  arm.  Hence  the  necessity  for  accepted  and  trust- 
worthy objective  standards.  The  history  of  the  rise,  adop- 
tion, and  perfection  of  such  standards  of  relative  quantity 
is  very  instructive;  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  our  argument 
that  we  should  follow  it. 

A  speculative  question  arises  at  this  point  which  is  of  some 
interest  to  a  metaphysical  discussion  of  the  category  of  quan- 
tity. This  question  is  not  infrequently  proposed  by  physi- 
cists in  the  interests  of  the  accuracy  and  constancy  of  their 
own  results.  The  standard  of  measurement  which  they  have 

20 


306  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

adopted  is  the  calculated  length  of  a  selected  great  circle  of 
the  earth.  But  the  size  of  the  earth  is  undoubtedly  slowly 
changing;  and  with  it,  of  course,  must  go  on  a  change  in  the 
standard  adopted  for  all  physical  measurements.  In  case, 
then,  an  appeal  to  experience  is  made  at  any  time  for  cor- 
recting this  standard,  all  sizes  and  distances,  as  measured  by 
this  standard,  will  have  to  change  in  relation  to  it,  if  they 
themselves  remain  constant  quantities.  But  in  such  a  case 
these  changes  of  relation,  when  taken  to  the  standard,  would 
reveal  themselves;  and  thus  warned,  we  should  be  enabled 
to  know  as  to  what  had  really  changed,  and  as  to  the  propor- 
tions in  which  the  observed  changes  in  relation  should  be 
distributed  amongst  the  different  things.  For  example,  we 
should  know  whether  the  reason  why  the  distance  from  the 
sun  to  the  earth  was  now  measured  by  fewer  kilometers  than 
formerly  was  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  kilometer  had 
grown  relatively  longer,  or  in  the  fact  that  the  earth  and  sun 
had  drawn  nearer  together.  Let  it  be  supposed,  however,  that 
all  things  in  the  universe,  so  far  as  they  come  under  human 
observation,  including  the  bodies  of  men  and  the  intensities 
of  sensations  in  the  flowing  stream  of  consciousness,  are 
changing  their  quantity  in  the  same  direction,  but  with  such 
nice  continuance  of  the  adjustment  amongst  their  long- 
established  and  well-known  relations  that  no  change  in  the 
relations  themselves  is  observable.  The  real  universe  would 
then  be  actually  growing  smaller  and  smaller,  indeed;  it 
would  be  shrinking  to  the  size  of  a  nutshell ;  but  all  things 
in  the  universe  would  retain  the  same  relative  sizes,  dis- 
tances, etc.  How  should  we  know  that  such  startling  changes 
in  the  Nature  of  Reality  were  actually  taking  place  ?  How 
do  we  know  that  this  is  not  what  is  now  taking  place  ? 

In  answer  to  such  puzzles  as  the  foregoing,  three  observa- 
tions are  of  interest  from  the  metaphysical  point  of  view. 
In  the  first  place,  all  measurement  of  things  is  conducted 
under  conditions  set  to  man's  mental  representation  of  the 


MEASURE  AND   QUANTITY  307 

world  as  a  system  of  concrete  existences  in  time  and  space. 
The  application  of  every  standard,  as  well  as  the  constitution 
of  the  standard  itself,  belongs  to  his  mental  "picture  "  of  the 
world.  Now,  inasmuch  as  this  mental  picture,  considered 
space-wise,  is  no  mere  photograph  or  express  copy  of  the 
trans-subjective,  all  that  it  is  essential  for  the  Reality  to  be, 
and  to  do,  is  included  in  the  continuance  of  the  relations  in 
such  manner  as  to  realize  in  things  its  oivn  immanent  ideas. 
For,  of  course,  measurement  of  things,  their  temporal  and 
spatial  qualities  and  relations,  as  well  as  their  manifold 
seizures  and  losses  of  the  One  all-pervading  Force,  is  neces- 
sarily a  relative  affair.  Subjectively  considered,  measure- 
ment is  relating.  Absolute  size,  absolute  distance,  or  bulk, 
or  force,  as  applied  to  particular  things,  has  no  meaning. 
All  objective  measurement  of  the  world  as  it  appears  to  us, 
in  its  time-form  and  space-form,  is  also,  in  its  very  essence, 
relative.  But,  second :  the  relativity  of  all  man's  use  of  the 
category  of  quantity  does  not  diminish,  but  rather  increases, 
the  necessity  for  placing  this  very  relativity  —  considered 
both  as  fact  and  as  a  network  of  laws  or  uniform  ways  of 
relating  and  being  related  —  upon  a  trans-subjective  ground. 
There  must  be  something  in  the  constitution  and  behavior  of 
things,  that  makes  them  relatable  in  terms  of  a  standard 
common  to  all ;  and  this,  in  spite  of  the  constant  and  infinite 
processes  of  change  that  are  going  on  in  these  relations. 
Whether  certain  particular  things  are  swelling  and  others 
shrinking,  and  this  in  such  a  way  as  to  preserve  some  con- 
stant standard  of  measurement,  or  not,  does  not  essentially 
affect  our  valid  conclusions  as  to  the  inner  and  the  constant 
nature  of  Reality.  And,  third :  in  being  known  as  measur- 
able at  all,  the  World  reveals  itself  as  a  rational  totality,  a 
system  of  beings  actually  conforming  in  all  the  varied 
changes  of  their  measurable  and  calculable  relations  to  ideal 
forms.  In  this  way  the  objects  of  man's  cognitive  experi- 
ence are  made  to  constitute  an  ideal  Unity,  which  comprises 


308 


A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 


an  infinite  variety  of  different  beings  that  are  comparable 
and  capable  of  being  known  as  quantitatively  related  in  the 
mind's  pictorial  representation  of  things. 

This  third  and  most  important  tenet  of  the  metaphysics  of 
quantity  is  made  clearer,  more  forceful,  and  comprehensive, 
by  a  study  of  the  "science"  of  measurement  and  of  spatial 
relations,  as  such.  In  the  development  of  this  science  the 
most  important  psychical  activities  are  the  imagination  to 
construct  the  points  of  departure,  and  the  logic  which  con- 
nects together  into  chains  of  demonstration  the  abstract 
ideas  thus  obtained.  If  these  ideas  are  more  directly  gath- 
ered from  our  sensuous  experience  with  concrete  things  under 
the  limitations  of  the  space-picturing  imagination,  and  are 
placed  in  their  simplest  relations  to  one  another,  we  have  the 
so-called  "  axioms  "  of  the  Euclidean  geometry  (comp.  p.  304). 
The  demonstrations  of  this  geometry  then  follow  in  a  logical 
way,  with  the  constant  possibility  of  an  appeal  to  experience 
for  their  illustration  and  verification  by  a  process  of  progres- 
sive approximation  to  an  absolute  exactness.  But  when  these 
ideas  are  converted  into  pure  abstractions,  the  different  pos- 
sible relations  of  these  abstract  conceptions  become  the  so- 
called  "  postulates  "  of  the  modern  geometry. 

The  demand  of  the  Euclidean  geometry  is  that  we  should 
envisage  the  simplest  conditions  of  our  mental  picture  of 
spatial  relations  and  see  that  the  thing  is  so.  This  envis- 
agement  will  make  the  several  fundamental  propositions 
"self-evident,"- — -a  small  collection  of  axioms;  because  the 
mind  cannot  help  seeing  that  such  are  the  relations  which 
exist  between  the  different  elements  of  its  space-picture  of 
the  world.  Such  so-called  "axioms,"  however,  have  no 
self-evidencing  power,  if  the  attempt  is  made  to  apply  them 
to  the  relations  of  real  beings  considered  independently  of 
this  pictorial  representation.  But  the  modern  geometry,  in 
its  theory  of  measurement,  strives  to  free  itself  from  all  sen- 
suous conditions.  Its  points  of  starting  are,  therefore,  postu- 


MEASURE   AND  QUANTITY  309 

lated  rather  than  deemed  axiomatic  in  the  sense  of  the  latter 
word  which  is  assumed  to  be  true  for  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  Euclidean  geometry.  Choosing  freely  its  postu- 
lates, the  purely  abstract  science  then  proceeds  to  construct 
a  logical  system  of  conclusions,  all  of  which  state  those  rela- 
tions between  certain  abstract  conceptions  which  follow 
necessarily  from  the  postulates  chosen  as  points  of  starting. 
The  Euclidean  geometry  assumes  that  the  relations  actually 
existing  amongst  the  different  spatial  "  moments  "  of  reality 
are,  of  necessity,  precisely  similar  to  man's  pictorial  repre- 
sentation of  the  world  in  space.  It  is  the  geometry  of 
the  senses  and  of  the  sensuous  imagination;  it  is  that 
"pure"  science  of  space  relations  which  can  be  taught  to 
the  common-sense  consciousness.  Its  "  purity  "  consists  in 
its  freedom  from  the  particular  limitations  of  the  sensuous 
imagination,  the  "  h'gurate  conception  "  of  the  spatial  rela- 
tions and  spatial  qualities  of  things.  But  Kant  was  justified 
in  pointing  out  that  it  is  a  priori  only  for  our  "  sesthetical  " 
experience.  It  does  not,  of  itself,  tell  us  anything  as  to  the 
inner  nature  of  the  trans-subjective  ground  on  which  its  own 
pictorial  representation  reposes.  The  modern  geometry,  on 
the  other  hand,  makes  no  claim  to  demonstrate  what  the 
spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations  of  real  things  must  be; 
and  it  does  not  ask  to  have  its  fundamental  postulates  veri- 
fied as  self-evident  in  terms  of  figurate  conception.  It  says : 
"  Come,  let  us  make  all  sorts  of  assumptions  as  to  the  values 
of  x  and  y,  in  our  setting  forth  of  hypothetical  space-rela- 
tions; let  us  give  ourselves  all  manner  of  subtle  and  fascin- 
ating problems  for  solution  on  the  basis  of  a  choice  among 
these  assumptions;  and  then  let  us  see  where  strict  logical 
argumentation  will  bring  us  out  in  conclusion."  The  perti- 
nent and  important  metaphysical  truth  is  this:  Both  the 
Euclidean  and  the  modern  geometry  assume  the  significant 
principle  that  the  Reality  which  manifests  itself  within,  and 
to,  the  mind  of  man,  in  its  actively  measuring  and  reasoning,  is 


310  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

itself  constructed   as    a    logical,    rational,  and   Self -consistent 
System. 

None  of  the  "  self-evident "  propositions  on  which  the 
ordinary  geometry  founds  its  system  of  demonstrations  are 
"  synthetic  judgments  "  a  priori,  in  the  meaning  given  by 
Kant  to  those  words.  The  predicate  in  these  propositions 
does  not  add  something  wholly  new  to  the  subject;  nor  is 
the  genesis  of  the  judgment,  or  the  mind's  confidence  in  it, 
independent  of  all  concrete  experience  with  actual  objects. 
On  the  contrary,  the  office  of  the  judgment  itself  is  to  pro- 
nounce the  result  of  our  intuition  of  the  space  qualities  and 
space  relations  of  the  things  known  by  sense-perception, 
after  these  qualities  and  relations  have  been  subjected  to 
the  refinements  of  imagination  and  intellect;  and  this  result 
is  stated  by  the  judgment  in  the  form  of  an  identical  and 
self-consistent  proposition. 

The  clearness,  cogency,  and  consistency,  of  that  system 
of  connected  propositions  which  can  be  made  to  follow  from 
the  so-called  axiomatic  points  of  starting  adopted  by  the 
Euclidean  geometry,  is  due  to  the  nature  of  the  material  with 
which  the  logical  faculties  have  to  deal.  This  material  is 
composed  of  a  certain  number  of  conceptions  whose  marks 
are  perfectly  apprehensible  and  definitely  capable  of  being 
separated  from  all  those  interdependent  conditions  which 
determine  the  complex  changes  of  actual  things.  Relations 
of  real  things  are  infinitely  complicated,  and  they  cross  each 
other  in  an  indefinite  number  of  ways ;  actual  relations  are 
a  tangled  network  of  relations.  This  is  true  of  every  sim- 
plest and  meanest  thing,  and  of  every  most  common  and  in- 
significant transaction  between  things.  Every  "  Thing  "  is  a 
concrete  realization  of  all  the  categories;  it  partakes  of  the 
whole  throbbing  and  striving  life  of  nature ;  and  every  trans- 
action between  things  is  an  epitome  of  the  history  of  the 
universe.  But  the  spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations  of 
things  are  themselves  related,  and  these  relations  between 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  311 

the  spatial  qualities  and  spatial  relations  of  things  are  totally 
different  in  respect  of  the  problems  they  propose.  They 
constitute  the  science  of  "space"  (or  geometry),  which  thus 
differs  essentially  from  every  form  of  applied  science;  its 
complications  are  matters  not  of  observed  fact  but  of  logical 
arrangement  mainly.  For  example,  no  biologist  can  even 
make  a  beginning  toward  expounding  the  demonstrative 
science  of  a  single  amoeba ;  but  if  this  science  could  be  com- 
pletely expounded  by  one  gifted  with  the  power  of  clear  de- 
scription, we  might  all  hope  to  understand  it.  There  are, 
however,  huge  volumes  which  contain  the  demonstrative 
science  of  certain  systems  of  space  relations ;  and  the  funda- 
mental conceptions  of  these  volumes  we  could  all  understand, 
but  few  there  be  that  can  understand  the  complexity  of  the 
arguments  employed  in  arranging  these  conceptions.  Yet 
the  forms  of  argument  which  all  geometrical  treatises  employ 
are  taken  from  the  fundamental  rules  of  reasoning,  as  these 
rules  apply  to  every  kind  of  material  which  the  intellect  of 
man  can  make  the  subject  of  argument. 

The  "geometrical  axioms,"  then,  which  furnish  the  points 
for  the  departure  of  all  the  trains  of  reasoning  employed,  are 
special  and  are  derived  from  the  nature  of  things  viewed  as 
having  space  qualities  and  as  existing  in  space  relations 
merely.  But  the  "general  axioms  "  of  geometry  are  such  as 
belong  to  all  use  of  the  reasoning  faculty.  The  possibility  of 
a  science  either  "  pure  "  or  applied,  by  combination  of  the 
two  forms  of  axioms  enforces  anew  the  same  ontological 
principle:  The  mental  representation  of  things  in  space  is 
indeed  subjective  and  relative;  but  its  subjectivity  reposes 
upon  the  trans-subjective  Ground  of  an  ideal  and  rational 
Nature  which  belongs  to  the  entire  system  of  things. 

The  true  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the  measurement  of 
space,  with  its  resulting  doctrine  of  quantity  as  applied  to 
realities,  may  fitly  be  illustrated  by  one  or  two  examples. 
Let,  first,  the  so-called  axiom  concerning  the  properties  of 


312  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

straight  lines  be  examined  from  our  point  of  view.  If  the 
old-fashioned  way  of  bringing  to  notice  this  so-called  self- 
evident  proposition  be  adopted,  the  judgment  certainly 
appears  to  be  neither  synthetic  nor  a  priori  in  the  Kantian 
sense.  For  the  proposition  that  "a  straight  line  is  the 
shortest  distance  between  any  two  points  "  is,  undoubtedly, 
a  purely  analytic  or  identical  proposition.  What  is  meant 
by  the  act  of  sense-perception,  or  of  sensuous  imagination, 
which  enables  us  to  intuit  or  to  construct  a  straight  line,  is 
precisely  this, — a  line  so  perceived  or  imagined  that  it 
runs  by  the  shortest  path,  and  without  the  least  bit  of  turn- 
ing out,  from  one  point  to  another  in  space.  "Draw  me  a 
straight  line  from  a  to  b  "  means  nothing  else  than  this :  — 
proceed  with  your  chalk,  or  pencil,  or  with  your  imaginary 
moving  point,  directly  from  a  to  b.  In  general,  the  idea  of 
the  shortest  path  is  identical  with  the  idea  of  the  straight 
path.  And  " straight-line  "  =  in  quantity  "shortest-line," 
is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  a  straight  line  is,  when 
considered  quantitatively,  and  compared  with  all  other  lines, 
the  shortest  of  them  all. 

Moreover,  when  the  effort  is  made  to  test  this  so-called 
axiom,  we  see  not  only  that  both  of  its  terms  express  the 
same  idea,  but  also  that  neither  the  subject  nor  the  predicate 
of  the  judgment  can  be  represented  in  idea,  without  the 
mind's  relating  activity  at  once  connecting  the  two  under  the 
form  of  identity.  For  the  idea  of  a  "  straight  line  "  has  no 
content  except  by  comparison  with  lines  that  are  not  straight; 
and  beyond  doubt,  the  "  shortest  distance  "  means  nothing 
unless  a  contrast  with  longer  distances  is  implied.  Suppose, 
then,  it  is  proposed  to  test  the  so-called  axiom  in  a  given 
instance.  Let  our  problem  be  to  determine  whether  this 
straight  line  which  we  have  just  drawn  between  a  and  b  is 
really  shorter  than  any  other  possible  line  between  the  same 

two   points.     How  shall  we  know  that  this  line  a b  is 

straight  ?     Only  by  comparing  it  with  other  actual  or  imag- 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  313 

nary  lines  that  crook  or  curve.  How  shall  we  know  that 
the  same  line  is  shorter  than  any  of  the  crooked  or  curved 
lines  ?  Only  by  measuring  it  and  them  with  the  unaided  eye 
or  with  some  standard  of  measurement.  Now  for  practical 
purposes  our  sensitiveness  to  differences  in  the  length  of 
lines,  and  to  any  departure  of  lines  from  a  straight  course, 
may  be  assumed  to  be  about  equal.  Theoretically  and  actu- 
ally, too,  when  it  comes  to  the  utmost  niceties  of  measure- 
ment, this  is  not  precisely  true.  But  the  fact  is  that  if,  in 
the  act  of  measuring  the  line  a  5,  in  order  to  test  its  fidelity 
to  the  terms  of  the  axiom,  it  is  discovered  to  be  either  crook- 
ing and  curving  at  any  point,  or  failing  in  "  being  short, "  it 
is  promptly  rejected  as  not  an  example  under  the  axiom. 
And  if,  by  an  act  of  imagination,  the  mind  passes  beyond  all 
the  limits  of  an  actual  testing  of  the  character  of  the  line 
a  6,  the  same  experience  is  found  to  hold  good.  I  cannot 
imagine  this  line  to  deviate  infinitesimally  from  the  straight 
path  without  imagining,  at  the  place  of  deviation,  another 
and  perfectly  straight  path  which  would  take  the  point  trac- 
ing the  line  by  a  shorter  course  to  its  desired  goal. 

Suppose  now,  however,  this  so-called  axiom  be  thrown 
into  its  more  appropriate  and  useful  form ;  and  let  the  state- 
ment of  the  truth  previously  employed  be  relegated  to  the 
place  of  a  definition.  .  We  are  then  told  that  "  through  every 
two  points  in  space  one  and  only  one  straight  line  may  be 
drawn."  This  statement  reduces  the  axiom  to  the  form  of  a 
postulate,  — an  asking  of  us  to  grant  the  possibility  of  draw- 
ing —  in  imagination,  of  course  —  a  straight  line  between 
any  two  points  in  space.  The  words  "  one  and  only  one  "  are 
entirely  superfluous ;  for  the  definition  of  a  straight  line  is 
"the  shortest,"  and  to  think  of  more  than  one  "shortest"  is 
absurd.  The  postulated  possibility  of  drawing  one  straight 
line  between  any  two  points  in  space  is,  for  our  mental  repre- 
sentation of  space,  a  self-evident  but  tautological  proposition. 
For  if  the  ends  of  a  line  are  defined  as  "points,"  then  any 


314  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

two  imaginary  points  may,  of  course,  be  imagined  as  the 
ends  of  any  number  of  imaginary  lines.  For  mere  situation 
or  mere  distance  in  space  has  no  power  to  prevent  the  imagi- 
nation from  drawing  lines;  the  rather  is  the  very  nature  of 
our  mental  representation  of  space  such  as  to  insure  the  possi- 
bility of  a  perfectly  free  activity  of  imagination  in  this  kind 
of  play.  Between  any  a  and  any  b  an  indefinite  number  of 
paths  of  connection  lie  open  to  the  imagination.  And,  of 
course,  one  of  these  is  the  straight  and  shortest  path  which 
starts  the  line  with  one  end  in  a  and  lands  it  with  the  other 

in  b.     This  is  the  straight  line  a b. 

Similar  conclusions  are  reached,  though  by  a  somewhat 
more  complicated  use  of  the  powers  of  perception,  imagina- 
tion, and  reasoning,  with  regard  to  another  so-called  axiom, 
or  postulate,  of  geometry.  On  the  straight  line  A  B,  at  any 
two  points,  let  the  two  perpendiculars  A  0  and  BDbe  erected ; 
at  points  equidistant  from  A  and  B  let  these  perpendiculars 
be  crossed  by  a  straight  line  connecting  the  points  C  and  D\ 
and  let  the  length  of  the  line  A  B  =  x,  and  the  length  of  the 
line  CD  =  y :  then  x  =  y.  Now  how  do  we  know  this  ?  The 
proposition  may  be  said  to  be  axiomatic,  or  self-evident,  to 
sense-perception  and  to  imagination ;  but  only  after  a  some- 
what complex  exercise  of  these  faculties  has  been  performed 
under  control  from  those  "  general  axioms  "  which  apply  to 
all  our  reasoning  processes.  Finally,  however,  the  result 
comes  to  an  identical  judgment  which  is  based  upon  inspec- 
tion of  the  spatial  relations  of  objects.  If  either  of  the 
lines,  A  C  and  B  D,  leans  in  the  slightest  degree  toward  or 
away  from  the  other,  the  postulate  is  violated.  But  if  noth- 
ing of  this  sort  happens,  then,  of  course,  the  two  lines  will 
remain  the  same  distance  apart;  and  other  lines  which 
measure  this  distance  will  themselves  be  of  equal  length. 
For  by  "distance  between  two  lines,"  under  the  circum- 
stances postulated  here,  we  mean  nothing  else  than  the  paths 
traversed  by  the  line  A  B  between  the  points  A  and  B,  and 


MEASURE   AND  QUANTITY  315 

by  the  line  CD  between  the  points  C  and  D.    This  is  equiv- 
alent to  saying,  x  =  y. 

If  now  it  were  desired  to  submit  this  so-called  axiom  to 
testing  by  any  particular  example,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
watch  for  any  "  leanings "  in  either  of  the  perpendiculars 
A  C  and  BD,  and  for  all  crookings  and  curvings  in  the  lines 
AB  and  CD.  Here,  again,  for  ordinary  practical  purposes, 
our  sensitiveness  to  the  leanings  of  the  perpendiculars  and 
to  the  consequent  shortening  or  lengthening  of  the  connect- 
ing lines  may  be  assumed  to  be  about  equal.  But,  theoreti- 
cally and  actually,  too,  as  tested  by  the  niceties  of  experi- 
mental methods,  the  relations  between  the  least  perceptible 
differences  of  the  angles  of  the  parallelogram,  and  the  least 
perceptible  differences  of  the  lines  forming  its  sides,  are  ex- 
ceedingly complex  and  variable.  But  if  I  once  free  the  axiom 
from  the  limitations  of  sense,  I  cannot  imagine  the  lines 
A  C  and  B  D  being  any  nearer  together  without  leaning,  i.  e.9 
beginning  to  get  nearer  together.  When  a  carpenter,  for 
instance,  wishes  to  apply  this  axiom  to  the  making  of  a 
table's  top,  he  uses  his  square  both  to  "right"  the  angles 
and  to  measure  the  sides.  Only  as  he  makes  both  these 
measurements  does  he  construct  the  shape  and  size  correctly. 
He  thus  illustrates  his  appreciation  of  the  self-evident  and 
tautological  character  of  the  geometrical  judgments  in- 
volved :  Under  all  such  relations  of  angles  and  straight  lines 
to  one  another,  x  —  y. 

The  modern  geometry,  however,  in  its  striving  for  an  ex- 
tension of  the  "  purity  "  of  its  system  of  connected  proposi- 
tions, starts  from  a  postulated  rather  than  from  an  intui- 
tively perceived  proposition.  Three  possible  cases,  it  says, 
may  occur;  but  only  three.  These  are,  x  =  y;  x>y\  and 
x<y.  Each  of  these  three  may  be  made,  if  once  postulated, 
the  point  of  starting  for  divergent  systems  of  space  relations, 
so  far  as  such  relations  are  determinable  from  this  particular 
point  of  starting.  But  in  thus  changing  the  axiom  to  a 


316 


A   THEOEY   OF  REALITY 


postulate,  and  then  introducing  three  cases  of  the  postulate, 
geometry  falls  back  upon  the  incontestable  validity  of  the 
"general  axioms"  which  apply  to  all  human  reasoning. 
Otherwise,  how  does  it  know  that  these  three  cases  exhaust 
all  the  possible  postulates;  that  x  must  either  equal  y,  or 
be  greater  than  ?/,  or  less  than  y  ?  And  how  does  it  know 
that  we  may  reason  about  x  and  y  at  all  ? 

In  similar  fashion,  all  mathematical  figures  may  be  re- 
garded as  mere  hypotheses  by  which  experience  is  reconciled 
with  the  fundamental  laws  of  intellect  through  the  help  of 
the  schematizing  power  of  the  imagination.  Thus,  on  the 
one  side,  geometrical  lines  and  figures  are  made  copies  which 
are  taken  from  sensuous  experience ;  on  the  other  side,  they 
are  abstract  relations  which  are  assumed  by  the  intellect, 
in  order  to  bring  the  system  of  them  into  absolute  agreement 
with  the  demands  of  logic.1 

In  passing  to  the  discussion  of  the  allied  conception  of 
number,  we  may  be  pardoned  for  calling  attention  again  to 
the  truths  of  metaphysical  import  which  the  discussion  of 
the  conception  of  quantity  has  evoked.  Man's  actual  meas- 
urements of  the  world  of  things  are  all,  indeed,  subjective 
and  relative ;  he  selects  his  standards  and  his  points  of  view, 
and  thus  calculates,  or  discerns,  in  terms  applicable  from 
one  to  another,  the  spatial  qualities  and  relations  of  the 
objects  of  his  cognitive  experience.  This  he  does  in  the 
carrying  out  of  his  practical  ends  —  including  in  the  word 
"practical,"  the  progressive  mastery  of  the  geometrical 
science  of  things.  All  geometrical  propositions  are,  there- 
fore, applicable  to  the  mental  representation  of  the  world  of 
objects  as  in  space,  and  from  the  point  of  view  which  regards 
their  extensive  magnitude  only.  But  man  also  measures  the 
amounts  of  physical  energy  —  the  actual  work  accomplished, 
or  work  potentially  implicated  —  which  belong  to  things. 
This  measuring,  too,  is  equally  subjective  and  relative.  And 

1  Compare  Caspar!,  "  Grundprobleme  der  Erkenntnissthatigkeit,"  II.,  p.  217  f. 


MEASURE   AND   QUANTITY  317 

both  kinds  of  the  application  of  the  doctrine  of  quantity  are 
made  possible  by  his  experience  with  the  facts  of  motion  as 
regulated  by  the  laws  of  motion  —  whether  theoretical  and 
based  on  the  nature  of  space,  or  based  on  observation  of  the 
actual  changes  of  things  in  space. 

All  man's  science  of  quantity,  however,  implies  an  import- 
ant ontological  truth  as  to  the  actual  nature  of  things.  Other- 
wise this  so-called  science  is  not  knowledge;  —  much  less  is 
it  that  peculiarly  convincing  form  of  knowledge  to  which 
the  name  of  "  science  "  is  properly  restricted.  Thus  what  is 
implied  in  our  use  of  the  categories  of  space  and  of  force,  is 
extended  in  the  same  direction  by  what  is  implied  in  the  facts 
of  measurement  and  in  the  category  of  quantity.  The  world 
is  known  as  a  system  of  quantitatively  comparable  and  meas- 
urable, concrete  realities.  To  affirm  this  is  to  endow  the 
world  with  an  ideal  and  rational  nature  —  so  far  forth,  after 
the  analogy  of  our  own.  The  "  pure  "  and  the  "  applied  " 
science  of  measurement  and  of  quantity  is,  indeed,  anthropo- 
morphic. It  applies  to  the  envisaged  pictures  of  particu- 
lar things  extended  in  space  and  enduring  in  time.  But  it 
is  also  knowledge  of  a  Reality  over  which  mind  rules  in  the 
disposition  and  distribution  of  the  one  Being  and  Force  of 
the  world. 


CHAPTER    XII 

NUMBER  AND  UNITY 

THAT  some  kind  of  numbering,  as  an  activity  and  achieve- 
ment of  the  human  mind,  is  necessary  in  order  to  the  rudest 
objective  measurement  has  already  been  implied  in  discuss- 
ing the  category  of  quantity.  For  it  is  by  comparison  of 
discrete  things  with  one  another,  or  by  successive  applica- 
tion of  some  one  thing,  as  a  standard,  to  other  things  —  their 
extensions  or  their  distances  — •  that  all  genuine  measure- 
ment takes  place.  In  estimating  amounts  of  physical  force 
also,  some  "  unit "  of  force  must  be  employed ;  and  this  in- 
volves at  least  a  naive  and  crude  conception  of  number.  In 
all  those  more  accurate  measurements  which  not  only  science 
but  also  the  successful  intercourse  of  men  demands,  the 
precise  and  intelligent  use  of  the  acquired  power  to  number 
is  indispensable.  Both  the  making  and  the  recording  of 
measurements,  and  the  whole  theory  of  quantity  are  depend- 
ent upon  refinements  in  those  conceptions  with  which  arith- 
metic and  the  allied  developments  of  mathematics  deal.  The 
science  of  geometry  —  "  the  science  of  space  "  —  can  advance 
to  conquer  the  new  fields  that  lie  opening  before  it  only  as  it 
secures  support  from  the  developed  technique  of  the  science 
of  arithmetic  —  the  "  science  of  number. " 

As  the  mental  process  of  measuring  lays  its  emphasis  upon 
discrimination  of  the  qualities  and  relations  of  things  in 
space,  so  the  mental  process  of  numbering  emphasizes  dis- 
crimination of  the  order  of  occurrences  in  time.  Thus  the 
categories  of  space  and  time  are,  both  of  them,  illustrated; 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  319 

and  the  conceptions  of  spatial  and  temporal  relations  are  de- 
veloped in  dependence  upon  the  rise  and  growth  of  concep- 
tions both  of  quantity  and  of  number.  The  one  fact  of  expe- 
rience upon  which  all  this  mental  activity  is,  so  to  speak, 
expended,  is  the  fact  of  change  constantly  going  on  in  the 
world  of  spatially  and  temporally  related  objects.  Motion 
in  space,  estimated  under  the  category  of  time  —  this  is 
necessary  to  all  actual  measurement  of  the  transactions 
going  on  amongst  things.  And  as  the  estimate  of  amounts  of 
motion  is  taking  place,  the  process  of  counting  goes  on. 
The  "  counted-up  "  quantitative  "  moments  "  of  the  motion, 
as  they  follow  each  other  in  the  moments  of  time,  give  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  measurement. 

Counting  is  the  essence  of  all  numbering;  and  —  essen- 
tially considered  —  all  science  of  numbers  is  nothing  but 
counting.  We  have  the  clew,  then,  to  those  reflections  with 
which  the  category  of  number  furnishes  the  searcher  after  a 
system  of  metaphysics,  when  we  have  asked  and  answered 
these  two  questions :  What  is  the  psychological  genesis  and 
nature  of  the  mental  process  of  counting  ?  and  what  is  impli- 
cated, as  to  the  ultimate  nature  of  Reality,  in  the  accepted 
fact  that  the  concrete  realities  of  experience  can  be  counted ; 
and  yet  that  they  can  be  so  counted  only  as  parts,  or 
"moments,"  in  the  unity  of  the  system  ?  In  the  attempt  to 
deal  with  this  second  inquiry  all  the  ultimate  problems  of 
metaphysics  are  involved.  For  the  conception  of  "  Unity  " 
—  and  without  this  scientific  numbering  is  impossible  —  is 
so  important,  so  fundamental,  and  yet  so  comprehensive  and 
variable,  that  he  who  understands  what  it  is  to  be  One  and 
yet  many  has  the  key  to  some  of  the  most  profound  secrets 
of  the  universe. 

The  nature  of  the  mental  processes  involved  in  counting, 
and  thus  in  the  genesis  and  development  of  conceptions  of 
number,  is  not  especially  obscure.  There  are,  to  be  sure, 
certain  points  about  which  a  difference  of  opinion  may  fairly 


320 


A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 


exist;  but  the  main  features  of  these  processes  are,  we  be- 
lieve, the  following.  The  "stream  of  consciousness,"  al- 
though it  has,  as  a  rule,  the  continuity  of  a  stream,  and 
although  no  portion  of  that  stream  can  be  considered  as 
independent  of  all  other  portions  (especially  of  those  most 
nearly  contiguous),  is  divisible  into  so-called  "states." 
This  division  is  not  to  be  effected  by  forces  lying  outside  of 
the  stream  itself ;  it  is  rather  dependent  upon  concentration 
of  the  force  of  attentive  and  discriminating  consciousness, 
considered  as  belonging  to  the  subject  of  the  states.  Or,  to 
abandon  this  figure  of  speech,  the  Self  does  not  discern  its 
own  states  as  in  any  way  separable  from  itself  or  from  one 
another,  by  contemplating  and  manipulating  them  from  with- 
out; neither  are  the  states  self -separable  entities,  or  quali- 
ties of  beings  not  identical  with  the  life  of  the  Self.  The 
different  variations  in  the  characteristic  content,  complex- 
ity, and  intensity  of  consciousness,  both  determine  and  are 
determined  by  the  accompanying  pulsations  of  attentive 
discrimination.  Thus  the  Self,  as  always  both  active  and 
passive,  the  constructor  and  the  observer  of  its  own  states, 
is  self -known  as  a  unity  and  as  a  discrete  manifoldness  as 
well.  But  both  the  unity  and  the  discrete  manifoldness  of 
the  Self  are  subject  to  the  formal  category  of  time.  My 
life,  my  very  being,  is  a  succession  of  connected  and  inter- 
dependent states  which  have  the  unity  they  possess  given  to 
them  by  self-consciousness,  recognitive  memory,  and  as  a 
development,  under  the  control  of  immanent  ideas. 

That  kind  of  the  succession  of  conscious  states,  in  time, 
which  most  stimulates,  favors,  and  demands,  the  early  exer- 
cise of  the  faculty  of  counting  may  be  described  as  follows : 
A  succession  of  states  which  are  interesting,  strikingly  simi- 
lar in  content  and  intensity,  but  separated  from  each  other 
by  somewhat  abrupt  changes  in  the  tone  of  feeling  and  in  the 
character  of  the  transition  between  them.  If  the  succession 
of  such  states  is  somewhat  rhythmical,  the  arousement  of 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  321 

the  mind  to  count  is  the  more  effective.  Such  are,  for  ex- 
ample, the  repeated  sensations  of  sound  caused  by  a  clock 
striking,  the  swaying  of  the  infant's  body  to  and  fro  in  the 
nurse's  arms,  the  movement  before  the  eyes  of  the  pendu- 
lum's swing  or  of  the  ball  suspended  from  a  cord.  Thus 
arises  the  dawning  consciousness  of  "again  and  yet  again  " 
—  that  same  feeling  and  idea,  recurrent  and  separated  from 
the  ones  that  have  been  and  are  to  be,  by  the  ordering  of 
time.  The  resultant  in  consciousness  and  memory  of  expe- 
riences like  these  is  the  first  vague  idea  of  a  "numerical 
multiplicity  "  as  distinguished  from  the  manifoldness  of  parts 
belonging  to  one  object  in  space.  This  does  not,  indeed, 
constitute  the  activity  of  counting  —  at  least  not  in  any  in- 
telligent and  scientific  fashion.  But  it  forms  the  impulse  to 
those  more  intellectual  and  discriminating  mental  processes 
that  are  involved  in  genuine  counting.  And  in  the  case  of 
children  and  of  savages,  who  can  count  scarcely  at  all,  but 
who  are  by  no  means  insusceptible  to  minute  differences  in 
such  numerical  multiplicity,  it  largely  takes  the  place  of 
counting. 

The  many  possible  variations  in  that  terminal  state  of  con- 
sciousness which  is  produced  by  the  repetition  in  conscious- 
ness of  the  similar,  when  broken  up  into  the  separate,  depend 
largely  upon  the  number  of  the  repeated  similar  states. 
This  terminal  state  may  be  spoken  of  as  the  inchoate  con- 
sciousness of  numerical  multiplicity.  There  is  a  difference, 
for  example,  between  the  conscious  statewhich  follows  as 
second  or  third,  in  a  succession  of  similar  states,  from  that 
which  follows  as  sixth  or  seventh ;  and  so  on.  Of  this  differ- 
ence attentive  discrimination  makes  us  immediately  aware. 
For  example,  the  clock  has  given  four  of  the  ten  strokes 
which  announce  an  hour  of  interest  to  me ;  I  am  awaking  to 
the  fact  that  the  clock  is  striking,  but  I  have  not  as  yet 
counted  its  strokes.  But  now  the  fifth  stroke  arouses  in  me 
a  vague  consciousness  corresponding  to  that  number  in  the 

21 


322  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

series ;  the  "  reverberations  "  of  this  acoustic  sensation  are  as 
of  the  fifth,  and  of  no  other  stroke  in  the  series.  I  therefore 
count  it  "  five ; "  and,  proceeding  now  to  that  more  definite 
repetition  of  the  attentive,  ordering,  and  apperceptive  con- 
sciousness in  which  genuine  counting  consists,  I  find,  on 
reaching  the  end  of  the  series,  that  the  entire  process  of 
numbering  has  been  correct.  But  the  first  part  of  the  process 
is  relatively  animal  and  infantile ;  the  second  part  is  rational 
and  distinctly  cognitive.  Much  of  our  adult  experience 
illustrates  the  difference  between  this  vague  perception  of 
degrees  of  "discrete  manifoldness,"  or  "numerical  multipli- 
city, "  and  the  rational  and  completely  apperceptive  process 
of  counting. 

It  is  probable  that  all  genuine  counting  requires  the  devel- 
opment of  apperceptive  and  objective  consciousness ;  for  as, 
in  the  case  of  measurement,  we  measure  things  by  means  of 
quantitative  discriminations  in  our  own  conscious  states,  so 
in  the  case  of  counting,  we  number  things  by  means  of  the 
repeated  strokes,  or  pulsations,  of  our  apperceptive  conscious- 
ness. In  either  case,  however,  it  is  not  the  quantities  or  the 
ordering  of  our  own  states  which  interests  us ;  it  is  rather 
the  sizes,  distances,  and  number  of  things.  The  child 
counts  objects,  and  not  the  successive  conditions  or  im- 
pressions of  its  mind.  To  be  sure,  these  conditions  and  im- 
pressions, too,  may  be  made  the  object  of  the  faculty  of 
numbering;  and  this  is  what'  all  self-consciousness  is  com- 
pelled to  accomplish.  To  be  self-conscious  is  to  be  aware  of 
some  particular  state  as  one,  of  the  successive  state  as  an- 
other, and  as  different  in  time ;  it  is  also  to  assign  both 
states  to  the  one  subject  of  all  the  states.  But  in  the  actual 
order  of  the  mental  development,  the  culture  of  the  power  to 
count  is,  at  first,  chiefly,  if  not  wholly  gained  in  the  mas- 
tery of  the  presentations  of  sense.  This  mastery  involves 
the  cognition  of  these  presentations  as  separable  in  space 
and  time  and  —  whether  similar  or  dissimilar  in  content  and 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  323 

in  spatial  relations  —  as  capable  of  being  given  a  fixed  place 
in  a  series.  In  this  series  it  is  not  the  characteristic  con- 
tent of  the  different  members  which  is  emphasized  by  the 
mind's  activity  in  counting:  it  is  the  character  of  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  members  in  the  series. 

In  securing  and  developing  the  conceptions  of  number,  all 
the  faculties  of  the  mind  are  operative.  But  especially  is 
numbering  an  intellectual  affair.  It  involves  self-conscious 
and  voluntary  attention,  directing  upon  the  objects  in  some 
determinate  time-order  its  repeated  strokes,  and  meanwhile 
being  aware  that  these  strokes  are  being  repeated  in  this 
orderly  manner.  It  involves  analysis  and  synthesis  —  both 
of  them,  as  applied  to  the  individual  members  of  the  series, 
so  as  to  give  to  these  members  individuality  and  yet  consti- 
tute them  into  the  unity  of  the  series.  It  requires  a  final  act 
of  synthesis  which  completes  the  conception  of  that  particular 
number,  —  of  four,  or  five,  or  ten,  as  a  unity  consisting  of 
just  so  many  members.  For,  as  Dr.  Ward  has  pertinently 
said  i1  "  Every  act  of  intuition  or  of  thought  is  an  act  of  uni- 
fying;" and  if  the  concept  of  unity  were  an  impression  of 
sense  and  passively  received,  it  would,  in  common  with  other 
such  impressions,  be  unamenable  to  change.  We  must  there- 
fore look  to  the  movement  of  attention  for  the  origin  of  this 
category. 

It  would  be  a  grave  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that  the; 
mind  first  forms  a  clear  conception  of  unity,  and  then  by  a. 
process  of  addition  as  it  were,  forms  the  conceptions  of  the 
particular  numbers  composed  of  manifold  (so  many,  and  no 
more)  units.  Here,  as  in  all  allied  development  of  the  mind 
in  objective  knowledge,  progress  is  from  the  obscure  to  the 
clear  in  general,  rather  than  from  the  clear  in  one  particular 
to  the  clear  in  all  other  allied  particulars.  Without  the 
conception  of  more  than  one,  no  conception  of  unity  itself  can 

1  Art.  in  Encyc.  Brit.  p.  79 ;  and  compare  Lipps :  "  Grundtatsachen  des  See- 
lenlebens,"  p.  590  f. 


324  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

be  gained.  The  only  cow  on  the  island  of  Helgoland  did  not 
become  one  cow  for  the  children  on  the  island  until  they  had 
visited  Festland  and  seen  another  of  the  same  kind.  Thus 
all  development  of  numerical  conceptions  requires  that 
process  of  reciprocal  clarifying  which  involves  the  repetition 
of  analysis  and  synthesis,  of  separating  and  uniting.  The 
manifold  is  known  only  in  a  vague  way  to  be  different  from 
the  single,  until  this  manifold  is  understood  as  dependent  for 
its  nature  upon  the  coexistence,  in  intuition  or  in  thought,  of 
a  series  of  units.  On  the  other  hand,  the  unity  of  any  single 
object  can  be  comprehended  only  as  this  unity  is  contrasted 
with  a  manifoldness  of  similar  objects  that  must  emphasize 
its  difference  from  them.  "  One  "  and  "  two,"  or  any  number 
more  than  one,  "part"  and  "whole,"  "this  here"  and  "that 
other  over  there" — these  and  all  similar  conceptions  require 
the  clarifying  activity  of  counting  the  objects  as  they  arise 
in  the  stream  of  consciousness. 

Objectively  regarded,  then,  every  objective  experience  is 
necessarily  both  one  and  many,  according  to  the  point  of 
view  selected  for  the  fixation,  distribution,  and  redistribution 
of  apperceptive  attention.  And  this  is  because  every  object 
is,  from  the  psychological  point  of  view,  the  construct  of  an 
actual  analytic  and  synthetic  activity  of  the  intellect. 

It  thus  appears  that  all  conceptions  of  numbers  require 
that  the  manifold  should  be  consciously  and  actively  "dis- 
creted  "  by  the  mind  —  if  one  may  so  speak.  But  in  the  con- 
struction of  those  conceptions  which  answer  to  the  different 
numbers,  the  terminal  synthetic  act  of  consciousness  is  made 
emphatic.  I  count  one,  and  then  another,  and  then  still 
another ;  I  regard  the  whole  thus  attained  as  a  discrete  unity 
and  call  it  "three."  I  note  also  the  place  which  each  mem- 
ber —  no  matter  what  sort  of  an  object,  otherwise  regarded, 
it  may  be  —  holds  in  this  succession.  Thus  the  conceptions 
of  first,  second,  and  third  are  gained.  Each  of  these  con- 
ceptions both  separates  and  unites  its  objects ;  for  all  genuine 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  325 

counting  is  a  recognition  of  the  discreteness  of  objects,  fol- 
lowed by  a  recognition  of  their  being  now  united  as  members, 
each  in  its  place,  of  one  and  the  same  series.  Thus  number 
becomes  regularly  arranged  manifoldness,  —  with  the  selection 
of  the  particular  objects  which  shall  constitute  this  arrange- 
ment left  to  the  will,  in  its  effort  to  reach  practical  or  theo- 
retical ends,  but  with  the  law  (regula)  of  arranging  deter- 
mined by  the  constitution  of  the  intellect.  That  "two" 
must  follow  "one,"  and  must  be  itself  followed  by  "three," 
means  simply :  I  count ;  that  is,  I  mind  the  number  of  things. 
But  what  object,  or  part  of  an  object,  shall  be  put  into  the 
place  of  one,  or  two,  or  three,  may  be  as  I  will.  And  it  is 
the  extent  to  which  the  activity  of  counting  can  be  carried  by 
any  individual  or  any  portion  of  the  race,  and  the  choice  of 
points  of  view  in  the  varied  forms  of  counting,  which  deter- 
mine the  degree  in  development  of  men's  conceptions  of 
number  as  applied  to  things. 

What  it  is  in  the  construction  of  objects  which  makes  it 
possible  to  count  them  at  all  is  not  now  a  difficult  problem  to 
solve.  An  appeal  is  needed  to  three  principles  in  the  solu- 
tion of  every  such  problem,  —  two  of  them  more  especially 
formal,  and  the  third  more  especially  dynamic,  in  character. 
These  are  continuity  in  space,  continuity  in  time,  and  that 
combination  of  distinguishability  and  comparability  which 
secures  an  actual  correspondence  to  some  idea. 

First,  then,  a  certain  continuity  in  space  must  be  intuited, 
or  imagined,  for  every  object-thing  to  which  terms  of  num- 
ber can  be  applied ;  and  this  secures  to  it  in  particular  the 
unity  which  is  equally  secured  by  the  continuity  of  space  that 
belongs  to  every  other  object  that  is  numbered  together  with 
it.  The  being  of  the  one  thing  is  somehow  known  as  con- 
tinuous in  space ;  it  is  this  spatial  continuity  which  makes  it 
into  a  unity.  But  this  thing  can  be  "one  among  many," 
only  on  the  supposition  that  some  other  thing  also  possesses 
its  own  peculiar  spatial  continuity.  Moreover,  between 


326  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

these  two  things  and  all  other  members  of  the  same  series 
of  objects,  the  binding  influence,  as  it  were,  of  existence  in 
the  unity  of  space  must  be  felt.  For  example,  there  are  ten 
trees  in  yonder  row,  or  distributed  over  that  adjacent  plot  of 
greensward.  No  matter,  so  far  as  their  number  is  concerned, 
whether  the  trees  are  elms  or  maples,  oaks  or  yews  :  ten  trees 
are  they.  This  tree  is  here,  a  single  object  with  its  un- 
broken extension,  and  thus  constituted  for  sense-perception 
and  for  imagination,  one  tree ;  another  is  there,  with  its  own 
proper  extension,  and  thus  it  also  makes  one  tree;  but,  in 
number,  it  is  two.  Thus  straight  onward  we  count  the  row; 
or  we  wander  in  our  counting  over  the  plot  where  the  group 
is  distributed.  Spatial  continuity,  thus  broken  into  a  "  dis- 
crete manifoldness  "  by  the  construction  and  arrangement  of 
the  objects,  makes  it  possible  to  count  them.  But  if  one 
choose,  one  may  mentally  seize  upon  any  one  of  these  ob- 
jects and  convert  it,  by  regard  to  the  same  principle,  into 
the  unity  of  a  discrete  manifold.  This  tree  is  one  tree, 
indeed ;  but  it  has  two  main  branches,  and  each  of  these  is 
divided  into  four  or  more  branches  of  a  secondary  order. 
Every  individual  member  of  this  new  system  also  is  made 
one  by  its  own  continuity  in  space;  and  all  the  individuals 
together  are  numbered,  as  in  the  system,  by  extending  the 
principle  so  as  to  divide  and  yet  unite  them  all.  No  matter 
how  large  the  object  may  be  to  which  one  chooses  to  attri- 
bute the  unity  of  membership  in  the  numerical  series;  and 
no  matter  how  small,  even  beyond  the  limits  of  the  highest 
powers  of  the  microscope ;  both  sensuous  intuition  and  sen- 
suous imagination  bow  to  the  laws  of  objective  counting 
under  the  principle  of  the  continuity  of  space. 

Continuity  in  time  is  another  principle  to  which  the  con- 
stitution of  objects  must  conform  in  order  to  be  counted  and 
numbered.  The  very  act  of  counting  has  been  seen  to  con- 
sist in  a  series  of  "strokes  "  of  attention  that  are  recognized 
as  separate  and  successive  in  time;  and  the  results  of  which 


NUMBER  AND   UNITY  327 

are  summarized  by  a  terminal  conception  that  co-ordinates 
and  synthesizes  them  all.  The  very  idea  of  a  "  series  "  is 
dependent  upon  our  experience  with  what  is  successive  and 
separable  in  time ;  but  also  upon  the  unification  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  series  under  some  conception  of  their  number 
regarded  as  coexistent  in  time.  For  although  I  must  take 
time  to  count,  I  do  not  number  what  I  have  counted  unless  I 
regard  the  different  things  counted  as  a  unity  of  beings  that 
belong  to  the  same  time.  One,  two,  three,  and  so  on  up  to 
ten ;  but  "  ten  "  cannot  be  conceived  of  otherwise  than  as  de- 
pendent upon  the  continued  existence  of  the  preceding  units, 
with  which  it  is  now  joined  into  a  new  unity.  This  experi- 
ence is  made  objective  on  the  basis  of  the  conditions  furnished 
by  the  presentations  of  sense.  If,  for  example,  I  count  the 
strokes  of  the  clock  as  it  announces  the  hour  of  ten,  nothing 
remains  in  existence  that  can  be  regarded  as  corresponding 
to  the  terminal  conception  of  the  number  ten,  —  except  the 
conception  itself.  There  have  occurred  in  reality  so  many 
events;  but  there  does  not  now  exist  in  reality  any  corre- 
sponding number  of  objects.  If,  however,  I  count  the  ten 
"  real  "  trees  and  finish  this  succession  of  impressions  in 
time  by  the  judgment,  "There  are  ten;"  then  this  judgment 
of  numbers  may  be  verified  by  any  one  who  can  count,  as 
often  as  one  will.  One  may  begin  at  either  end,  or  in  the 
middle  of  the  row ;  one  may  divide  the  entire  series  with 
pauses  in  the  counting,  into  as  many  sub-groups  as  one  will ; 
but  there  are  always  ten.  In  order  that  they  may  be  counted 
as  ten  —  objectively  and  actually  —  these  presentations  of 
sense  must  be  known  as  coexistent  in  one  time.  Endurance 
of  objects  in  time,  and  the  objective  unity  of  time,  is  thus 
a  necessary  assumption  of  the  application  of  conceptions  of 
number  to  our  presentations  of  sense,  or  to  the  constructs  of 
intellect  and  imagination  in  terms  of  presentation  of  sense. 
The  principle  of  continuity  in  time  must  be  observed  in  order 
that  objects  may  be  counted  and  numbered  as  real  existences. 


328  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

Distinguishability  from  other  objects,  and  yet  compara- 
bility with  other  objects,  is  necessary  in  order  that  any  con- 
crete reality  may  be  intuited  or  imagined  under  the  category 
of  number.  In  order  to  appear  as  "one,"  every  object  of 
sense-perception  or  of  imagination  must  separate  itself  off 
from  other  objects  and  yet  in  such  a  way  as  to  be  comparable 
with  them.  To  be  counted  as  existent  in  the  world  of  real- 
ity, each  thing  must  be  actually  one,  indeed;  and  yet  it 
must  also  be  one  among  many.  This  implies,  on  the  one 
hand,  that  Reality  itself  is  a  System  of  inner  Relations  which 
have  been  somehow  set  free  from  internal  contradictions; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  it  implies  in  each  concrete  example 
a  certain  steadfastness  in  obedience  to  the  laws  which  con- 
trol its  own  peculiar  relations  with  other  more  or  less  similar 
objects.  The  object  must  separate  itself  from  the  environ- 
ment of  objects,  in  order  to  be  considered  as  a  Thing,  a 
single  being ;  it  must  also  behave  in  accordance  with  its  own 
principles  of  being  and  not  fuse  with  or  lose  itself  in  any 
other  being,  if  it  is  to  continue  its  claim  to  be  counted  at  all. 
Thus  men  ask  in  the  expressive  language  of  slang,  whether 
this  particular  thing  "  counts  "  for  aught  or  not.  The  claim 
to  be  counted  as  belonging  to  the  world  of  actual  beings  is 
established  only  by  a  certain  steadfast  action  in  accordance 
with  certain  immanent  ideas;  it  is  this  which  Mr.  Bradley 
has  rightly  assigned,  in  its  supreme  form,  only  to  the  Abso- 
lute, —  namely,  that  "self-consistency  "  which  is  the  essence 
of  true  being.  For  only  so  long,  and  so  far,  as  any  object 
remains  self -consistent,  can  it  be  counted  as  one  —  as  itself 
(the  "  It "  which  corresponds  to  that  particular  "  Self  ")  and 
no  other.  This  every  meanest  real  thing  does  in  its  own 
more  or  less  perfect  measure.  But  should  any  object  aim  to 
push  its  self-consistency  so  far  as  wholly  to  isolate  itself, 
should  it  try  to  become  an  exclusive  and  selfish  unity,  it 
would  thereby  lose  all  its  being.  For,  in  order  to  be  counted 
and  numbered,  every  single  being  must  stand  up  with  the 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  329 

rest  of  the  beings  of  the  world  —  one  among  many.  In  re- 
spect to  its  number-characteristic,  as  in  respect  to  all  other 
characteristics,  the  "  individual  lives  and  moves  and  has  its 
being  "  in  the  Unity  of  the  one  infinitely  manifold  System. 

The  metaphysical  truth  with  which  we  have  just  been 
dealing  has  undoubtedly  been  somewhat  figuratively  ex- 
pressed. But  the  truth  told  by  these  figures  of  speech  is  truth 
both  of  fact  as  illustrated  in  ordinary  cognitive  experience, 
and  also  of  principle  as  enforced  by  the  axioms  and  generali- 
zations of  science.  He  speaks  falsehood  who  affirms  that 
there  are  ten  trees  in  that  row,  or  fifty  species  in  that  genus, 
or  so  many  thousands  of  scales  on  that  fish,  or  scores  of 
petals  or  sepals  in  that  flower,  and  does  not  observe  those 
principles  of  all  that  is  really  numerable.  Each  object 
of  man's  cognition  must  assert  its  claim  to  be  counted  as 
"one,"  by  its  actual  conformity  in  a  self-consistent  way  to 
certain  ideas;  but  each  object  is  counted  as  one  among 
many,  to  which  it  stands  related  by  conformity,  in  all  its 
behavior,  to  certain  laws  which  govern  the  entire  class.  To- 
be  sure,  one  may  count  things  together  in  a  quite  arbitrary 
and  even  freaky  way,  if  one  chooses  so  to  do.  But  such 
counting  does  not  result  in  the  healthy  growth  of  man's 
knowledge  of  the  nature  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives. 
The  tree  is  one ;  the  bird  in  its  branches  is  two ;  the  squirrel 
in  the  hole  in  the  branch  is  three;  and  the  fungus  on  its 
trunk  is  four,  —  objects  all.  That  you  and  I  see  these  four 
things  may  be  of  some  temporary  practical  interest  to  us; 
but  it  is  not  by  such  loose  enumeration  of  objects  that  science 
is  built  up.  Even  in  this  case,  our  counting  observes  each 
of  the  foregoing  three  principles  of  all  application  of  number 
to  reality;  since  it  recognizes  the  four  objects  of  sense- 
perception  as  distinguishable  and  yet  belonging  to  the  com- 
mon class  of  the  visible,  under  the  formal  conditions  of  space 
and  time. 

If  now  the  inquiry  be  raised,  as  to  what  it  is  that  causes 


330  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  different  objects,  which  get  counted  and  numbered,  to 
differentiate  and  yet  unify  themselves  in  the  way  in  which 
they  actually  do,  the  only  satisfactory  reply  must  take  into 
account  the  whole  system  of  forces,  forms,  and  laws,  under 
which  the  world  of  things  is  known.  This  world,  from  the 
point  of  view  held  by  the  mind  that  numbers  its  objects  is 
itself  some  sort  of  a  unity  of  the  manifold.  Space  and  time 
are  the  formal  conditions  of  this  characteristic  of  number 
which  all  the  objects  of  human  knowledge  possess.  But  it  is 
the  manifold  forms  taken  by  the  world's  constructive  forces 
that  must  be  considered  as  actually  differentiating  Reality 
into  the  multitude  of  concrete  unities  which  exist  under  these 
formal  conditions.  In  a  word,  the  One  Force  of  the  World, 
under  those  formal  conditions  of  time  and  space  which  It 
sets  to  our  mental  representation  of  things,  by  its  infinite 
differentiations  also  gives  existence  to  many  objects,  that  are, 
for  the  time  being  actual  unities,  and  yet  have  all  their  being 
in  manifold  relations  of  dependence  to  one  another.  Thus 
the  category  of  Number  depends  for  its  application  to  the 
objects  of  man's  knowledge  upon  the  categories  of  Space, 
Time,  and  Force,  and  upon  those  conceptions  and  assump- 
tions as  to  the  Nature  of  Reality  which  have  already  been 
found  to  be  warranted  by  all  these  categories. 

By  intellectual  processes  similar  to  those  which  construct 
the  abstract  science  of  space,  an  abstract  science  of  number 
is  founded  and  developed.  The  actual  synthesis  of  which 
the  senses  and  the  sensuous  imagination  are  capable  extends 
to  only  a  small  number  of  objects.  The  need  which  arith- 
metic and  its  allied  branches  of  mathematics  feel,  of  assist- 
ance from  a  system  of  accepted  symbols  is,  therefore,  no  less 
great  than  the  similar  need  felt  by  geometry.  To  discuss 
the  systems  actually  in  use  by  modern  science  —  their  psy- 
chological genesis,  historical  development,  and  metaphysical 
import  —  would  take  our  thought  much  too  far  afield.  It  is 
enough  for  present  purposes  to  call  attention  briefly  to  the 


NUMBER   AND   UNITY 

following  truths :  First,  the  essence  of  all  arithmetical  procT 
esses  is  the  activity  of  counting;  and  all  the  most  funda- 
mental rules  of  arithmetic  simply  declare  the  results  of  the 
different  ways  of  working  this  one  process  of  counting. 
Addition  is  counting  on,  and  subtraction  is  counting  off. 
Multiplication  is  counting  on  —  so  many  groups  which  have, 
each  one,  so  many  individuals;  and  division  is  counting  off, 
—  so  many  groups,  each  one  of  a  specified  number.  As  the 
relations  between  the  symbols  which  stand  for  the  different 
numerical  magnitudes  are  complicated,  the  argument  follows 
the  same  "general  axioms"  of  all  reasoning  which  geometry 
employs.  Second :  even  the  most  primitive  and  fundamental 
judgments  in  mathematics  are  not,  as  Kant  affirmed,  syn- 
thetic and  a  priori  (in  the  Kantian  meaning  of  these  words). 
On  the  contrary,  these  judgments  are  analytically  descrip- 
tive of  the  results  reached  in  the  various  modes  of  the  general 
process  of  counting.  For  example,  the  proposition  5  +  7  = 
12,  means  simply  to  mark  with  appropriate  and  fixed  sym- 
bols the  result  of  counting  five,  and  then  continuing  to  count 
until  seven  more  have  been  counted.  But  the  symbols,  5  +  7, 
may  also  be  taken  as  a  problem;  and  then  they  furnish  a 
challenge  to  perform  a  certain  process  of  counting,  which  has 
a  subordinate  terminal  synthesis  introduced  at  a  certain  place 
in  the  entire  course  of  the  process.  The  conception  of  twelve, 
as  the  predicate  of  the  resulting  judgment  of  equality,  adds 
nothing  to  the  complex  conception  of  the  subject  (5  +  7) ;  it 
simply  states  the  term  which  has  been  fixed  by  agreement  for 
that  particular  member  in  the  series  of  objects  counted.  And 
whether  we  pause  after  the  fifth,  or  after  the  seventh,  or 
after  any  other  member  of  the  series,  in  any  special  way, 
makes  no  difference  with  our  conception  of  the  number 
"twelve."  The  value  of  this  number  is  determined  by  the 
times  the  unit  has  been  repeated  before  arriving  at  its  place, 
as  indicated  by  the  symbol,  in  the  numerical  series. 

It  has  already  been  shown  how  subjective  and  relative  to 


332  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

his  varying  physical  and  mental  interests  is  the  actual  system 
of  numbering  which  man  applies  to  the  objects  of  his  con- 
crete experiences.  What  primarily  determines  all  numbering 
is  the  succession  of  "  strokes  of  attention ''  as,  in  connection 
with  the  analytic  and  synthetic  activity  of  intellect,  they  are 
applied  to  the  different  "  moments  "  in  the  life  of  the  Self. 
But  objective  numbering  is  determined  by  something  other 
than  man's  own  choice,  not  to  say  his  own  caprice.  The 
numerations  and  calculations  of  science  are  not  merely  sub- 
jective and  relative  to  the  desires,  wants,  and  practical  ends, 
of  human  life.  Things,  as  they  appear  to  man  under  the 
conditions  of  his  sense-perception,  imagination,  and  thought, 
have  also  something  to  say  as  to  how  he  must  number  them. 
The  forces  that  operate  in  and  between  things,  and  between 
things  and  us,  determine  their  number-characteristics  for  us. 
This  system  of  objective  numbering  takes  place  under  the 
formal  conditions  of  Space  and  Time,  and  in  accordance  with 
those  regulated  changes  of  things  which  the  Force  of  the 
world  secures,  as  It  manifests  itself  in  the  infinite  variety  of 
objects  that  constitute  the  One  World. 

Taken  in  connection,  then,  with  the  other  categories  which 
have  already  been  critically  examined,  this  category  of  num- 
ber enforces  the  same  truth  as  to  the  Nature  of  Reality  which 
we  have  learned  from  them.  In  those  transitory  and  chang- 
ing relations  which  furnish  the  conditions  for  the  application 
of  the  conceptions  of  unity  and  of  manifoldness  (of  "numer- 
ical multiplicity")  to  man's  mental  representation  of  the 
world  as  in  space  and  time,  there  are  sure  tokens  to  be  dis- 
covered as  to  the  unchanging  and  absolute  character  of  the 
trans-sub jectively  Real.  The  ontological  doctrine  thus  de- 
rived includes  the  following  particulars :  first,  the  reality  of 
certain  ideal  relations  which  always  control  the  actual 
changes  of  things;  second,  the  actual  manifoldness  of  that 
Being  of  the  World  in  which  the  relations  coexist;  third, 
the  reality  of  some  unifying  bond  or  principle,  which  actu- 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  333 

ally  unites  the  elements  into  separate  unities,  and  which  also 
binds  them  all  together  into  higher  and  higher  unities,  and 
at  last  into  a  supreme  Unity.  In  one  word,  the  metaphysi- 
cal doctrine  of  number  compels  us  to  credit  as  ontologically 
true  —  the  Reality  of  the  manifold  in  Unity,  of  the  One  as 
comprehending  and  conditioning  the  many. 

Thus  does  the  inquiry  after  the  highest  valid  conception 
of  "  unity  "  become  an  all-important  problem  for  any  metaphy- 
sical system.  In  discussing  this  problem  it  is  almost  as 
difficult  as  it  is  unprofitable  to  shirk,  or  to  discredit,  the 
import  of  the  facts  of  man's  common  experience.  Approach- 
ing the  problem  on  the  side  of  knowledge,  we  know  that  all 
our  conceptions  of  any  manner  of  unity  are  derived  from  the 
self-conscious  unifying  activity  of  the  mind.  In  every  intui- 
tion of  a  single  object,  or  of  several  objects,  whether  com- 
bined to  constitute  a  single  group  or  known  as  contrasted 
groups,  it  is  the  grasping  together  by  active  consciousness 
which  gives  the  number-qualification  to  the  intuition.  And 
the  limit  of  the  cognition  attained,  both  as  respects  its  clear- 
ness and  as  respects  its  manifoldness,  depends  upon  this  uni- 
fying and  yet  differentiating  "grasp  of  consciousness."  So, 
too,  are  all  imagination  of,  and  all  reasoning  about,  numbers 
dependent  upon  the  same  unifying  actus  of  the  mind. 

But  in  any  completed  act  of  knowledge  the  object,  thus 
produced  by  the  mind's  self-activity,  is  also  presented  to  the 
mind  as  being  really  a  unity.  What  is  it  really  to  be  one ; 
what  is  it  to  be  an  actual  unity  ?  This  is  an  ontological 
inquiry,  a  question  which  has  its  place  in  a  system  of  meta- 
physics. Whenever  we  speak  of  the  "unity"  of  Force,  or 
the  "  unity  "  of  the  World,  or  the  "  unity  "  of  the  origin  or  the 
continued  connection  of  all  beings  in  One  Absolute  or  World- 
Ground,  we  surely  need  to  determine  carefully  the  meaning 
of  our  numerical  conception.  But  for  such  phrases  no  mean- 
ing can  be  found  which  is  not  framed  after  a  more  or  less 
perfect  analogy  of  the  self-known  unity  of  the  Self.  It  is  the 


334  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Self  which  is  the  source  of  the  logical  formulas  and  the 
typical  example  of  every  kind  and  degree  of  unity.1  The 
same  Ego,  which  actively  constitutes  all  the  known  unities, 
knows  itself  as  the  highest  type  of  what  it  is  to  be  one,  in 
truth  and  in  reality. 

Things  possess  unity  only  in  a  way  inferior  to  that  unity 
which  the  self  possesses  in  the  highest  degree.  Let  there 
be  no  mistake  here :  it  is  not  the  imagined  rigidity  of  the 
steel  bar  which  constitutes  the  highest  kind  of  an  actual 
unity.  This  particular  piece  of  metal,  which  has  just  been 
cut  off  at  the  rolling-mill,  is  indeed  "  one  "  in  a  very  solid 
and  permanent  way.  It  will  require  no  small  expenditure 
of  force  to  divide  it  into  two  or  more  parts ;  it  will  take  no 
little  time  to  dissolve  its  unity  into  a  multiplicity  by  the 
slow  consumption  of  the  natural  forces  of  heat  and  cold  and 
moisture,  etc.  Although  it  is  a  unity  of  a  certain  sort,  it  is, 
nevertheless,  undergoing  constant  change;  it  is,  indeed,  a 
different  thing  every  moment  of  its  seemingly  unchanging 
existence.  The  mind  regards  it  as  the  same,  one  Thing 
through  all  its  minute  and  invisible  changes,  — the  same  $, 

—  because  the  changes  run  through  the  series,  &,  Sa,  Sp9  Sy, 

—  $,,  and  so  obey  the  laws,  or  immanent  ideas,  that  control 
the  being  of  this  /SI     Even  thus,  however,  we  cannot  frame 
any  conception  of  what  it  is  for  S — the  single  bar  of  steel 

—  to  be  an  actual  unity  without  appealing  to  the'  analogy 
of  our  experience  with  ourselves. 

Any  such  thing  as  a  bar  of  steel  is  really  a  vast  collection 
of  elements  that  are  united,  under  the  conditions  of  space 
and  time,  in  accordance  with  certain  relatively  simple  ideal 
forms.  But  in  the  case  of  those  unities  that  develop  from 
relatively  simple  and  homogeneous  beginnings  into  exceed- 
ingly complex  and  variable  products,  the  conceptions  of 
number,  as  they  apply  directly  to  the  life  of  the  self,  become 
more  apprehensible  and  exact.  What  is  it,  for  example, 

1  Compare  the  author's  "Philosophy  of  Mind,"  chap,  vi.,  "The  Unity  of  Mind." 


NUMBER  AND  UNITY  335 

that  gives  unity  to  those  forms  of  life  which  undergo  such 
astonishing  transformations  of  material,  shape,  and  func- 
tions, as  certain  plants  and  animals  exhibit?  It  is,  obvi- 
ously, the  subjugation  of  the  manifold  in  space  and  time  to  the 
unity  of  ideas.  It  is  only,  however,  when  the  ideas  become 
such  conscious  states  in  the  being  which  undergoes  the 
changes  as  to  form  incitements  and  guides  to  its  will,  that 
we  reach  the  highest  kind  of  unity,  and  the  richest  variety  of 
content  as  well.  So  that  the  more  like  the  self  any  other 
being  is  known  to  be,  the  higher  is  the  unity  which  that  being 
possesses,  because  constructed  more  closely  after  the  pattern 
of  the  self.  And  among  selves,  that  One  is  the  highest 
actual  unity  that  is  the  most  of  a  genuine  Self. 

In  discussing  the  categories  of  change,  being,  time,  space, 
and  force,  frequent  reference  was  made  to  the  conception  of 
unity.  In  order  that  change  may  be  more  than  change, 
some  unifying  principle  must  be  discovered  or  assumed.  In 
order  really  to  be,  the  being  that  claims  existence  for  human 
cognition  or  human  thought  must  behave  itself  in  accordance 
with  some  ideal,  harmonizing  principle,  comprehensible  by 
the  human  mind.  Time,  space,  and  force  —  all  these  cate- 
gories —  have  number  applied  to  them ;  and  the  whole  mani- 
fold complex  of  changing  and  moving  things  is  bound  into  a 
system  by  the  unifying  of  time,  and  space,  and  force.  But 
mere  force  will  produce  no  actual  unity ;  and  when  physics  or 
metaphysics  speaks  of  the  unity  of  force,  as  though  it  were 
an  explanatory  principle,  unless  some  secret  reference  is  made 
to  the  self-consistent  and  rational  activity  of  a  Will,  the  con- 
ception is  not  advanced  a  whit  beyond  the  bare  statement  of 
the  fact  of  universal  interaction.  Nay:  action  and  interac- 
tion do  not  mean  anything  real  and  vital  to  man's  cognitive 
experience,  unless  they  are  referred  for  their  interpretation 
to  the  way  in  which  the  Self  maintains  itself  as  a  unity,  in 
spite  of,  and  by  virtue  of,  its  manifold  forms  of  the  com- 
merce with  things.  Without  admitting  thus  much,  all  meta- 


336  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

physical  discussions  of  man's  conceptions  of  number  seem 
doomed  to  end  with  the  closing  sentences  of  Plato's 
"  Parmenides  " :  — 

"Then  let  us  say  this;  and  further,  as  seems  to  be  the 
truth,  let  us  say  that,  one  is  or  is  not,  one  and  the  others 
in  relation  to  themselves  and  one  another  —  all  of  them,  in 
every  way  —  both  are  and  are  not,  and  appear  and  appear 
not. 

"That  is  most  true." 

If,  then,  the  World  constitutes  a  real  unity  of  a  kind  at 
once  most  comprehensible  and  most  effective  to  account  for 
all  man's  experience  with  himself  and  with  other  things, 
this  unity  is  that  of  an  Absolute  Self.  Its  manifold  separate 
realities  have  their  being  as  manifestations,  or  "moments," 
in  Its  Unity.  That  this  is  so,  is  further  indicated  and  en- 
forced by  conceptions  which  have  not  yet  received  critical 
examination.  But  the  more  complete  and  satisfying  concep- 
tion of  the  nature  of  that  oneness  which  man's  progress  in 
knowledge  justifies  him  in  applying  to  the  system  of  known 
realities  requires  considerations  to  be  drawn  from  the  phil- 
osophy of  the  ideal,  —  from  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  religion. 
For  it  is  only  the  self-conscious  and  self-consistent  realiza- 
tion of  the  highest  ideals  which  can  reveal  to  the  mind  of 
man  the  nature  of  the  highest  kind  of  that  Reality  which  is 
-entitled  to  be  called  "One." 


CHAPTER  XIII 

FORMS  AND  LAWS 

CONCEPTIONS  corresponding  to  the  words  which  stand  at  the 
head  of  this  chapter  compel  the  extension  of  our  reflections 
in  the  effort  to  discover  that  Theory  of  Reality  which  shall 
most  satisfactorily  explain  all  the  facts  of  man's  cognitive 
experience.  "  Phenomena"  so-called  are  never  appearances 
of  mere,  undefined  beings,  or  of  unrelated  beings,  or  of  beings 
that  follow  no  particular  order  in  their  construction  and  their 
behavior.  On  the  contrary,  the  objects  of  man's  knowledge 
are  always  particular  beings,  constituted  in  definite  form  and 
behaving  in  more  or  less  uniform  manner,  whose  so-called 
"  natures  "  may  be  represented  conceptually,  and  whose  be- 
havior he  may  properly  attempt  to  formulate  and  to  explain  as 
an  obedience  to  the  laws  of  Nature  in  general.  Even  the 
most  sudden  and  surprising  changes  in  the  construction  or 
the  relations  of  things  do  not  take  them  out  of  the  sphere  to 
which  the  mind  deems  its  conceptions  of  form  and  of  law  to 
be  applicable.  For  actual  changes  never  move  from  the 
wholly  formless  or  chaotic  to  the  fully  formed,  but  only  from 
one  form  to  another  more  or  less  distantly  allied  form  ;  nor 
does  any  thing  ever  change  from  the  wholly  unrelated  to  the 
precisely  related,  —  a  jump  from  the  unconditioned  to  the 
definitely  conditioned,  —  but  only  from  one  set  of  relations 
into  another. 

On  the  one  hand,  without  change  the  very  conception  of 
form  and  law  have  no  significance  in  reality.  On  the  other 
hand,  change  that  has  absolutely  no  regard  to  form  and  law 

22 


338  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

can  never  get  any  place  in  reality.  All  the  particular  beings 
—  the  selves  and  the  things  —  which  are  known  or  can  be 
imagined,  are  really  what  they  are,  because  their  different 
constituent  elements  arrange  themselves  in  an  ideal  way,  and 
function  together  or  in  sequence,  under  conditions  of  recipro- 
cal dependence.  This  way  of  their  behavior  always  makes  a 
demand  upon  us  for  "reasons"  which  shall  show  why  the 
behavior  is  thus  rather  than  otherwise ;  and  why  the  series  of 
changes  in  form,  or  in  relation,  follows  this  particular  rather 
than  some  other  regular  course. 

It  is  true  that  the  metaphysical  way  of  interpreting  the 
conceptions  of  form  and  law  as  applied  to  selves  and  to  things 
does  not  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  answer  perfectly  to  the  common- 
sense  view.  It  is  enough  for  the  understanding  and  practical 
purposes  of  the  "  plain  man  "  that  he  shall  consider  the  form 
of  things  as  something  that  is  fixed,  and  belongs  to  them  as  a 
sort  of  gift  or  compulsion  from  without.  So  does  he,  with  his 
carpenter's  tools,  shape  the  table  or  the  box ;  the  thing  thus 
shaped,  unless  some  subsequent  accident  or  other  formative 
agency  comes  upon  it,  abides  in  the  same  shape  in  which  it 
was  put.  So,  too,  does  he  afterward  set  the  table  or  the  box 
in  such  relations  as  he  will  to  other  things  ;  and  when  he  has 
willed  these  precise  relations,  the  thing  stays  where  it  was 
set.  Little  reflection  is  needed  to  show  that  science  in  its 
complicated  dealings  with  such  transactions  —  simple  as  they 
appear  to  the  "  common-sense  "  consciousness  —  has  a  differ- 
ent tale  to  tell.  The  form  imparted  to  the  table,  or  to  the  box, 
was  not  originally  given  to  it  without  respect  to  the  form 
that  the  material  out  of  which  these  new  things  were  con- 
structed, already  possessed.  The  new  form  was  itself  due  to 
the  characteristic  modes  of  reaction  that  were  given  by  the 
material  to  the  formative  forces  which  acted  upon  it.  These 
modes  of  reaction  themselves  were  due  to  the  form  already 
belonging  to  the  material,  —  this  old  form  being  the  expres- 
sion of  certain  forces  of  cohesion  and  atomic  affinity  which 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  339 

had  previously  been  called  out  by  the  action  upon  the  ele- 
ments of  the  formative  chemico-physical  forces  under  which 
the  wood  grew.  Nor  was  the  form-giving  energy  exerted  by 
the  carpenter  of  an  essentially  different  order.  It  was  his 
saw,  plane,  and  hammer,  which  shaped  the  wood  into  these 
new  relations.  But  the  constantly  changing  relations  of 
these  tools  to  the  wood,  as  they  were  shaping  it,  were  them- 
selves produced  by  changes  in  the  form  of  the  muscles  of  the 
carpenter ;  these  latter  changes  were  shaped  by  those  myste- 
rious processes  which  go  on  in  the  efferent  nerve-tracts ;  and 
these  were  due  to  influences  that  may  be  traced  back  to  the 
motor  centres  of  the  brain.  Nor  is  there  the  slightest  valid 
reason  in  experience  to  stop  here  ;  for  it  was  the  formative 
influence  of  the  stream  of  consciousness  —  ideating  and  will- 
ing —  on  which  these  motor  centres  reacted  according  to  their 
own  nature  and  in  obedience  to  the  laws  relating  them  with 
the  mind,  which  initiated  the  entire  series  of  connected 
changes.  For  this  is  what  form,  as  belonging  to  all  particu- 
lar beings,  actually  is  ;  namely,  the  ideal  manner  in  which  the 
forces  immanent  in  things  react  upon  the  changes  in  their  rela- 
tions to  one  another.  In  reality,  every  particular  being  is  cease- 
lessly forming  itself  and  being  formed.  No  actual  form  is 
ever  statical  and  fixed.  The  actual  form  of  every  Thing  is  the 
changing  expression  of  the  nature  of  that  thing,  as  dependent 
upon  the  particular  part  which  it  is  playing  at  that  instant  in 
the  total  Being  of  the  World. 

Similar  conclusions  follow  a  critical  examination  into  the 
meaning,  for  reality,  of  that  aspect  of  our  common  experience 
which  leads  to  the  conception  of  physical  and  mental  "  laws," 
and  to  the  scientific  assumption  of  a  "  reign  of  law  "  which  is 
universal  in  the  realms  both  of  mind  and  of  matter.  In  the 
popular  thought  the  law,  like  the  form,  which  applies  to  any 
particular  case  is  customarily  regarded  as  though  it  were 
pre-existent  to  the  beings  to  which  it  is  applied,  —  dominating 
or  ruling  over  them  ;  to  "  It "  they  are  subject  as  to  a  sovereign 


340  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

whose  allegiance  has  been  involuntarily  and  unthinkingly 
assumed.  Modern  science,  especially,  seems  by  its  phrase- 
ology to  insist  upon  making  an  entity,  or  explanatory  realistic 
principle,  out  of  its  conception  of  "  Law,"  which  it  regards  as 
somehow  separable  from  the  facts,  and  as  belonging  to  a  higher 
and  more  invulnerable  order  of  existences.  Not  infrequently, 
the  total  collection  of  so-called  laws,  suspected  or  definitively 
ascertained,  is  thus  converted,  in  thought,  into  a  perfectly 
rigid  and  unchanging  system  of  rules,  that  binds  fast,  while 
it  wholly  explains,  the  character  and  the  sequences  of  the 
phenomena. 

In  reality,  all  physical  laws  are  only  convenient  and  often 
temporary  formulas  for  stating  the  ways  in  which  things  seem 
actually  to  behave  under  a  variety  of  changing  relations  to 
one  another.  Man's  knowledge  of  the  world  in  the  midst 
of  which  he  lives  does  not  begin  with,  or  depend  upon,  the 
conviction  that  the  actual  facts  of  his  experience  are  forever 
and  irresistibly  bound  together  under  unchanging  and  uni- 
versally applicable  formulas.  The  order  of  mental  develop- 
ment proceeds,  indeed,  from  observation  of  the  concrete  facts 
to  the  conception  of  a  regular  connection  amongst  the  facts. 
But  even  the  modified  way  in  which  Lotze  states  the  a  priori 
doctrine  of  this  conception  of  a  connection,  "  in  law,"  for 
the  entire  course  of  tilings,  as  antedating  experience  (steht 
vor  oiler  Erfahrung  fest\l  is  not  warranted  by  the  actual 
facts  of  man's  mental  development.  Chemical  laws,  for 
example,  can  not  be  spoken  of  as  actually  in  existence, 
while  as  yet  all  of  the  necessary  elements  have  not  come  into 
the  precise  relations  necessary  to  their  particular  forms  of 
chemical  union.  The  laws  of  physiological  chemistry  cannot 
antedate  the  facts  of  life.  And  as  to  the  universal  "  reign  of 
law,"  this  is  a  most  complicated  and  intensely  modern  concep- 
tion. In  its  ordinary  acceptation,  it  is  an  exceedingly  figura- 
tive and  still  doubtful  affair.  Whatever  form  of  interpretation 

1  See  his  "Metaphysik,"  Einleitung,  p.  8  f. 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  341 

is  given  to  this  seductive  phrase,  the  conception  answering  to  it 
remains  something  far  short  of  a  demonstration  or  even  of  a 
legitimate  a  priori  assumption. 

While,  however,  much  uncertainty  of  application  belongs 
to  the  conceptions  of  "  form  "  and  "  law,"  as  these  conceptions 
are  held  and  employed  by  modern  science,  both  of  them  are 
fitly  employed  in  witness  of  certain  forms  of  cognition  which 
are  entitled  to  be  considered  forms  of  reality  as  well.  That 
is  to  say,  the  words  express  certain  categories.  No  wholly 
formless  Thing  can  really  be  ;  and  if  such  a  no-thing  ( Unding) 
could  exist,  it  could  not  be  known  to  exist.  No  wholly  form- 
less, or  unshaped,  series  of  changes  can  take  place  in  the 
being  of  any  thing :  a  real  being  cannot  thus  violate  the  law 
of  its  nature,  even  when  feeling  the  utmost  compulsion  from 
outside  influences,  to  change  its  "  manner  of  life."  No 
wholly  formless  transaction  can  occur  in  which  several  things 
take  different  parts;  in  every  transaction  that  involves  a 
number  of  different  beings,  each  individual  being  must  take 
its  own  proper  part  in  the  form  that  fitly  belongs  to  it, 
whether  it  be  some  form  of  action  or  of  suffering.  But  in  all 
such  use  of  the  words  "  form  "  and  "  law,"  and  in  all  use  of 
similar  or  cognate  terms,  one  and  the  same  truth  is  meant.  It  is 
meant  to  apply  ideas  to  things,  and  to  the  behavior  of  things. 
Shaping  and  being  shaped,  formative  action  and  forming  re- 
action in  response  to  such  action,  are  both  alike  significant 
of  the  direction  of  immanent  forces  in  conformity  to  immanent 
ideas.  All  so-called  "  obedience  to  law "  is  voluntary  or 
enforced  submission  to  ideas.  No  other  meaning,  and  no 
meaning  whatever  which  excludes  this  meaning,  can  be  given 
to  any  of  these  terms ;  expressed  in  one  word,  the  truth  is 
this  :  Everything  that  is,  and  every  event  that  happens,  comes 
under  the  category  of  the  Idea. 

In  illustration  of  the  essential  thought  on  which  all  such 
terms  concentrate  attention,  the  way  that  men  employ  the 
two  words,  "  form  "  and  "  law,"  deserves  further  recognition. 


342  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

In  the  case  of  that  relatively  unchanging  material  which  is 
seemingly  shaped  wholly  from  without,  the  conception  of  form 
overlays  and  obscures  the  conception  of  law  ;  and  the  truth 
that  both  form  and  law  are  essentially  ideal  comes  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  insignificant  common-place.  No  one  thinks  of 
denying  that  the  idea  of  the  carpenter  determines  the  form 
which  the  table  or  box  shall  have.  But,  to  search  the  deeper 
truth,  it  is  the  obscure  and  complicated  action  and  reaction  of 
innumerable  factors,  mental  and  physical,  under  a  great  num- 
ber of  laws,  that  determine  the  form  of  the  finished  product. 
Brain  cells,  nerve-tracts,  muscle-fibre,  tools  of  wood  and  iron, 
material  of  wood  and  iron  —  all  have  been  both  forming  and 
being  formed,  according  to  the  several  laws  of  their  reciprocal 
relations.  Not  one  of  the  millions  of  factors  which  took  part 
in  this  transaction  will  ever  return  to  its  original  form  ;  'and 
no  other  table,  or  box,  which  called  out  the  same  concentra- 
tion of  laws  has  ever  been  formed,  or  ever  will  be  formed 
again.  The  combined  psychical  and  physical  forces  involved 
have  changed  the  form  of  all  the  beings  engaged  in  the  trans- 
action ;  the  entire  World  of  Being  will  neve>  be  the  same 
again.  The  event  seems  trivial  enough  ;  but  in  it  the  whole 
system  of  reality  has  actualized  once  for  all  a  particular 
series  of  its  ideas  ;  and  IT  never  needs  to  do  things  twice 
alike.  Form  and  law  have  directed  force,  and  things  have 
changed  in  conformity  to  new  ideal  conditions.  The  interior, 
mysterious  nature  of  all  this,  the  silent  but  marvellous  obe- 
dience of  the  concurring  factors  to  the  suggestions  and 
directions  of  the  idea,  are  not  to  be  overlooked  or  mistaken 
because  the  transaction  appears  to  the  popular  mind  so  coarse 
and  common-place.  For  this  is  just  what  the  conceptions  of 
"  form "  and  of  u  law  "  always  mean ;  the  changes  which  the 
forces  immanent  in  the  beings  of  the  world  effect,  whether  they 
are  changes  of  the  condition  of  the  beings  themselves  or  changes 
of  their  mutual  relations,  always  must  be  known  as  conforming 
to  ideas. 


FORMS   AND  LAWS 


343 


From  the  point  of  view  held  by  the  student  of  the  psycho- 
logical genesis  and  development  of  these  conceptions,  the 
subjective  and  relative  character  of  all  man's  knowledge  of 
forms  and  of  laws  is  most  obvious.  Every  real  Thing,  no 
matter  how  fixed,  essential,  and  independent  of  all  mental 
activity  it  may  appear  to  be,  has  in  truth  an  indefinite  number 
of  forms  and  obeys  an  indefinite  number  of  laws,  — according 
to  the  mind's  voluntary  or  involuntary  changes  in  its  points  of 
view.  "  Pure  "  form  or  "  pure  "  law  is  a  pure  abstraction ; 
actual  form  and  really  established  law  require  the  construc- 
tive and  relating  activity  of  mind.  The  psychology  of  these 
conceptions  shows  that  they  are  imparted  to  things  by  the 
mind  of  man.  Forms  are  given  to  things  by  the  formative 
activity  of  the  observing  and  reflecting  mind ;  laws  are  im- 
parted to  events  by  the  relating  and  reflecting  mind.  Forms 
and  laws  are  mental  representations,  figurate  conceptions, 
ways  in  which  the  senses  apprehend  and  interpret  the  modi- 
fications of  the  stream  of  consciousness.  No  other  kind  of 
form  seems  so  well  entitled  to  be  the  possession  of  the  thing 
in  itself,  fixed  and  independent  of  all  relation  to  the  knower, 
as  its  shape  or  its  size,  —  especially  in  the  case  of  the  solid 
and  unyielding  sorts  of  material.  How,  for  example,  are 
the  length  and  the  weight  of  a  steel  rail,  or  the  relation  which 
two  lines  of  steel  rails  sustain  to  each  other  over  the  miles  of 
road-bed  from  A  to  B,  dependent  upon  any  man's  perception, 
imagination,  thought  ?  But  the  discussion  of  the  categories 
of  quality,  relation,  and  space  has  already  answered  this  and 
all  similar  inquiries.  Length  and  weight  have  no  meaning, 
independent  of  the  measuring  activities  of  mind,  and  of  the 
sensations  and  feelings  of  effort  called  forth  by  the  changing 
relations  of  the  mind  to  the  things  that  possess  the  qualities. 

Moreover,  if  one  attempt  to  learn  the  entire  doctrine  of 
form  as  it  applies  to  any  single  thing,  or  to  compass  the  list 
of  so-called  laws  which  any  particular  being  is  obeying  at  any 
instant  of  its  existence,  one  will  need  to  exhaust  all  human 


344  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

knowledge  ;  and  still  one  will  be  far  enough  from  reaching  a 
complete  fulfilment  of  one's  aim.  As  to  space-form,  every 
single  thing  embodies  all  the  formal  principles  of  the  Euclid- 
ean geometry,  and  offers  suggestions  which  lead  the  thought 
out  into  the  wide  and  airy  regions  of  the  new  geometry.  As 
to  the  form  of  the  forces  that  are  centred  in  each  thing,  or 
are  concentrated  upon  it,  there  is  need  to  invoke  for  its  com- 
plete understanding  the  entire  modern  theory  of  dynamics. 
Heat,  light,  electricity,  magnetism  —  and  more  beyond  —  are 
all  expressing  their  will  in  the  form  which  every  particular 
being  has  assumed,  and  in  the  form  of  the  changes  it  con- 
stantly undergoes. 

What  a  mockery  of  an  explanation  it  is  to  regard  any  deed 
done  by  any  thing  as  an  event  under  the  reign  of  laws  that 
are  totally  unrelated  to  the  points  of  view  chosen  by  the  law- 
giving  mind  which  observes  and  thinks  upon  the  event !  The 
vase  falls  to  the  floor  and  is  broken  into  a  score  of  pieces. 
Its  fall  and  breaking  appears  to  me  as  one  continuous, 
unanalyzable  event.  Instantly,  and  at  the  right  moment, 
when  the  careless  servant's  hand  struck  it,  the  whole  thing, 
and  every  part  of  it  down  to  the  separate  atoms,  knew  what  to 
do.  Of  its  own  will  it  moved  to  the  floor,  to  which  it  was 
drawn ;  it  then  broke  itself,  just  precisely  as  it  was  broken, 
because  the  molecules  and  the  atoms  all  knew  what  was 
required  of  them,  each  one,  under  such  definite  but  com- 
plicated and  unaccustomed  circumstances.  Neither  the  vase 
as  a  whole,  nor  any  of  its  parts,  had  ever  behaved  in  any 
such  way  before ;  and  certainly  they  will  never  have  the 
chance  to  behave  in  similar  manner  again.  Yet  this  its  be- 
havior was  an  inconceivably  complicated  affair,  —  a  unit- 
transaction  involving  the  solution,  by  millions  of  elements,  of 
an  infinitely  complex  problem  which  they  had  never  been 
called  upon  to  solve  before.  You  and  I,  two  human  minds, 
—  perhaps  objecting  to  the  servant's  explanation  that  the 
vase  "  broke  itself  "  —  begin  to  pick  the  event  in  pieces,  to 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  345 

analyze  it,  to  consider  its  unique  particularity  as  a  combining 
of  millions  of  factors,  from  a  score  of  different  points  of  view. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  ethics,  we  blame  the  careless  hand 
that  initiated  it ;  but  with  the  wisdom  of  modern  science,  we 
declare  :  "  It  happened  according  to  law."  What  law,  indeed  ? 
It  would  seem  that  the  law  of  gravitation  was  most  promi- 
nently concerned  in  this  particular  transaction.  But  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  no  somewhat  that  existed  antecedent  to  this 
particular  fact,  and  presided  over  it ;  nor  had  this  law  any- 
thing to  do  with  more  than  one  possible  aspect  of  the  total 
complex  transaction.  The  so-called  laws  of  the  cohesion  of 
molecules  under  the  influence  of  heat,  and  of  their  separation 
under  mechanical  force,  must  also  be  summoned  to  help 
account  for  this  event.  These  physical  formulas  afford  us  a 
partial  satisfaction  in  the  explanation  of  another  aspect  of  the- 
whole  event.  The  laws  of  those  untrained  minds  that  work 
without  conscious  regard  to  law  may  also,  well  enough,  be 
regarded  at  this  point. 

Laws  many  and  forces  many  —  which  seem  to  change  them- 
selves in  character  as  we^change  our  points  of  view  and  sum- 
jrnon  more  or  less  of  the  world's  scientific  acquisitions  to  our 
'aid — certainly  get  concrete  expression  in  every  single  trans- 
action between  things,  no  matter  how  apparently  simple* 
Every  such  transaction  is  an  epitome  of  the  physical  universe. 
Man's  attempt  to  understand  it  succeeds  only  in  the  measure 
in  which  he  is  permitted  to  read  into  the  event  his  own  ideas. 
For  to  discover  and  to  declare  the  "  forms  "  of  things,  and  to- 
regard  them  as  obeying  "  laws,"  is  undoubtedly  to  impose 
upon  trans-subjective  realities  our  human  ideas.  The  Forms 
oLBeality..are  the  ideal_way_s  in  which  real  beings  appear  Jo  us, 
as  we  assume  toward  them  various  relations  determined  by 
selected  points  of  view.  The  Laws  of  Reality  are  the  concep- 
tual forms  of  behavior  which~~emphasize  our  attempts  at 
explaining  the  transactions  of  real  beings,  as  we  reflect  upon 
the  many  possible  aspects  which  these  transactions  present. 


346  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

If  now,  however,  all  trans-subjective  application  or  onto- 
logical  basis  for  man's  conceptions  of  form  and  law  be 
denied,  the  attempt  to  frame  a  rational  theory  of  reality 
must,  of  course,  be  forever  abandoned.  For  the  conformity 
to  ideas  of  those  unseen  forces  which  our  ordinary  or  our 
scientific  knowledge  ascribes  to  things,  is  both  a  postulate 
and  a  conclusion  of  all  objective  knowledge.  The  illustration 
•and  enforcement  of  this  truth  is  dependent  upon  consider- 
ations so  similar  to  those  which  have  already  been  repeatedly 
presented  that  our  treatment  of  it  may  be,  at  this  point,  very 
brief.  The  knower  necessarily  conforms  his  object  —  since 
the  process  of  knowing  is  his  conscious  activity  and  no  mere 
receptivity  or  process  of  copying-off  —  to  his  own  sensuous 
•and  intellectual  life.  The  object  known,  however  real  a  thing 
it  may  be,  is  never  a  construct,  in  respect  of  form  or  of  relation, 
independent  of  the  knower's  Self.  If,  then,  the  word  "  idea  " 
be  used  in  one  of  its  several  possible  significations  (idea=cog- 
nition  objectively  regarded),  then  every  object  of  cognition,  as 
respects  its  form  and  as  respects  the  laws  of  its  relation,  is  an 
idea.  As  said  Schopenhauer  :  "  The  World  is  my  Idea."  As 
Kant  taught :  The  laws  of  nature  are  determined  by  the 
functioning  of  the  intellect  under  its  several  constitutional 
forms,  —  the  twelve  so-called  "  categories." 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  no  object  of  any  form  of  human 
cognitive  experience  is  merely  man's  idea.  Its  being,  as  an 
object  of  knowledge,  is  also  the  product  wrought  by  a  will 
"  of  its  own,"  an  activity  that  is  principled  according  to  its 
own  appropriate  set  of  ideas.  The  moment  I  begin  to  regard 
my  object  as  a  real  existence,  I  recognize  that  it  actually  con- 
tributes its  quota  to  the  transaction  between  us  in  which  I  get 
my  idea  of  it,  and  learn  the  laws  of  its  nature  and  of  its 
behavior  toward  other  things.  I  can,  indeed,  observe  this 
object  from  different  points  of  view,  and  then  regard  it  as  an 
appearance  to  me,  in  conformity  with  the  forms  and  laws  of 
my  ideating  and  thinking  Self.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  I 


FORMS  AXD  LAWS  347 

cannot  dictate  to  it  how  it  shall  appear,  regardless  of  that 
group  of  ideas  which  constitute  its  formal  nature,  and  the 
so-called  laws  of  its  relations  to  other  beings  in  the  system  of 
things.  Nothing  else  so  shocks  common-sense  and  so  destroys 
all  the  foundations  of  science,  without  in  the  least  contribut- 
ing to  the  psychological  or  philosophical  explanation  of  the 
facts  of  experience,  as  the  claim  that  the  forms  and  laws  of 
real  things  are  determined  merely  by  the  ideas  of  man. 

That  the  forms  and  laws  ascribed  by  the  intellect  of  man 
to  things  have  a  trans-subjective  basis,  and  are  not  merely 
imparted  to  things  by  the  mental  act  of  knowledge,  is  one  of 
the  ontological  assumptions  which  metaphysics  has  a  perfect 
right  to  receive  from  a  critical  theory  of  knowledge.  The 
proper  metaphysical  (as  distinguished  from  the  epistemolog- 
ical)  inquiries  are  these  :  What  is  it  really  to  have  form,  or  to 
assist  in  forming  reality  ?  and,  What  is  it,  in  reality,  to  obey 
or  to  follow  laws  ?  or,  finally  :  What  view  of  the  Nature  of 
Reality  follows  from  the  observed  facts  that  the  world  of 
things  is  a  system  of  formed  beings,  of  formative  forces,  and 
of  the  connected  interaction  of  individuals  under  the  so-called 
"  reign  of  universal  law  ?  " 

Things  actually  have  forms ;  they  really  act  in  formative 
ways  upon  one  another ;  and  they  do  actually  obey  laws. 
These  and  similar  phrases  express  an  ontological  truth  which 
all  man's  experience  with  things  enforces,  and  which  a  criti- 
cal treatment  of  the  categories  can  neither  gainsay  nor  neglect. 
But  what  that  goes  on  in  reality,  what  that  is  attributable  to 
the  concrete  real  beings  and  their  actual  behavior,  is  meant 
by  such  phrases?  Truths  of  the  process  of  cognition  they 
plainly  set  forth ;  but  what  are  the  truths  they  assume  as  to 
the  construction  and  processes  of  reality  ? 

Any  direct  and  satisfactory  answer  to  such  inquiries  as  the 
foregoing  comes  only  when  reflection  turns  toward  our  self- 
conscious  and  indubitable  experience  with  our  Self  in  com- 
merce with  Things.  I  know  well  what  it  is  for  me  to  form 


348  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

something  else,  or  to  be  myself  formed  by  some  other,  and 
to  obey  or  to  evade  the  laws  of  my  own  being :  It  is  to  will 
according  to  my  own  ideas,  in  reciprocally  determining  rela- 
tions with  other  wills.  To  take  any  part  in  forming  one's 
self  or  others,  means  to  direct  my  action  in  pursuit  of  my 
own  ideas,  and  yet  in  recognition  of  variable  relations 
between  myself  and  other  beings.  For  without  recognition 
of  the  ideas  according  to  which  these  other  beings  act  in 
their  relations  to  me,  I  cannot  avail  myself  of  them,  either 
to  form  myself  by  them  or  to  form  them  to  my  will.  Whether 
the  influence  of  the  idea,  in  its  direction  of  the  stream  of 
consciousness,  extends  only  to  the  choice  of  an  apple  out  of 
a  plate-full,  or  contemplates  the  forming  of  a  finished  moral 
character,  the  necessity  is  the  same.  All  man's  different 
bodily  movements,  and  the  different  "  moments "  in  his 
psychical  development,  must  be  regarded  as  co-operating 
forces,  acting  and  reacting  under  the  direction  of  ideas. 
This,  too,  is  precisely  what  is  meant  when  we  regard  our- 
selves as  shaping  some  external  and  material  thing  so  as 
to  render  it  an  example,  in  reality,  of  our  own  ideas. 

The  actuality  of  this  ideal  interpretation  of  the  words 
form  and  law,  as  applied  to  the  system  of  things,  does  not 
admit  of  question  or  debate  in  respect  to  one  class  of  ex- 
ternal or  thing-like  objects.  This  class  comprises  all  other 
selves  than  our  self,  —  for  each  man,  his  fellow-men.  And 
here  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  for  every  knower  there  are 
only  two  possible  kinds  of  objects,  which  can  claim  for  their 
reality  the  immediacy  of  an  incontestable  knowledge ;  these 
are  the  Self,  and  Things.  As  the  knowledge  of  the  self 
changes  and  develops,  the  more  external  and  less  central 
factors  of  this  object  —  the  members  of  the  body  as  viewed 
from  the  outside  and  even  the  brain  as  imagined  or  thought  — 
become,  for  the  Self,  other  things  than  itself.  Always  the 
primary  evidence  for  the  existence  and  the  activity  of  all 
other  selves  is  the  knowledge  of  things ;  for  each  Self,  every 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  349 

other  being  —  other  men  included  —  is  known  as  a  "  Thing." 
What  is  really  indicated  by  the  vague  and  mischievously 
figurative  conception  of  a  so-called  "  social  self  "  is  nothing 
but  a  collection  of  thing-like  existences  whose  changes  I 
interpret  in  terms  of  the  self-conscious  processes  of  feeling, 
ideating,  and  willing,  which  I  know  myself  to  have.  All  this, 
however,  amounts  to  saying  that  the  changes  of  form,  passively 
endured  or  actively  accomplished,  and  the  changes  of  relation 
in  obedience  to  law,  of  these  things  are  known  to  me  as  ex- 
pressions of  other  will,  and  other  ideas,  than  my  own. 

If  now  the  grounds  be  examined  on  which  such  an  interpre- 
tation of  the  actual  significance  of  the  behavior  of  things 
reposes,  it  appears  in  no  essential  respect  peculiar,  much  less 
unique,  when  it  is  applied  to  other  selves.  The  way  is  open 
for  the  advocate  of  a  pure  subjectivism,  in  treating  this  cate- 
gory, too,  to  go  through  his  customary  series  of  tedious  and 
ineffectual  objections  to  any  form  of  realism.  You  are,  for 
me,  merely  existent  in  my  idea  —  as  the  idea  of  a  thing. 
You  are,  for  me,  mere  fact  of  sensation,  and  fainter,  recurrent 
image  of  sensation,  and  expectation  of  the  renewal  of  sensa- 
tion, etc.  And  sitting  in  your  academic  chair,  with  your 
agnostic  pen  in  hand,  you  may  write  me  down  as  a  maker  of 
unverifiable  assertions  when  I  maintain  that  I  know  you  as  a 
trans-subjective  entity,  not  dependent  for  your  real  being,  or 
actual  behavior,  on  my  stream  of  consciousness.  But  this 
agnostic  asseveration  itself  is  so  absurd  and  self-contradictory 
that  it  cannot  be  stated  in  other  than  suicidal  terms.  And 
upon  the  confidence  of  all  men  that  it  is  not  true  —  nay,  that 
it  has  not  so  much  as  a  faint  shadow  of  truth  to  urge  in  its 
behalf  —  all  men's  knowledge  of  each  other,  of  life,  of  society, 
of  history,  and  even  of  themselves  in  the  last  analysis,  is  seen 
to  repose.  Yet  the  confidence  itself,  in  the  last  analysis,  is 
nothing  other  than  confidence  in  the  interpretation  of  the 
changes  of  things  in  terms  of  ideas. 

Now,  so  far  as  all  that  is  essential  to  the  categories  of  Form 


350  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

and  Law  is  concerned,  other  things,  which  are  not  other  selves, 
do  not  differ  from  other  selves.  Things  differ  from  selves  in 
respect  of  the  forms  they  assume  and  impress  upon  one 
another ;  they  differ  also  in  respect  of  the  particular  laws 
which  they  obey  or  treat  with  disregard.  The  stone  will  not 
change  its  color-form  when  you  insult  it ;  nor  will  it  be 
recreant  to  the  law  of  gravitation  in  answer  to  your  beseech- 
ings.  The  limitations  that  it  acknowledges  in  the  series  of 
formal  changes  through  which  it  passes  are  different  from 
those  acknowledged  by  you  and  by  me.  But  the  limitations 
of  form  and  law  acknowledged  by  this  particular  stone  are 
also  different  from  those  which  are  acknowledged  by  another 
species  of  stone ;  or  by  the  feather  which  the  stone,  when 
thrown,  dislodges  from  the  bird's  wing.  There  are,  in  reality, 
many  kinds  of  things ;  and  each  kind  obeys  some  of  the  laws 
and  carries  out  some  of  the  ideas  of  all  other  things ;  but  each 
kind  has  ideas  of  its  own,  and  makes,  by  its  actual  concrete 
behavior,  combinations  of  laws  peculiar  to  itself.  To  no  kind 
of  things,  however,  can  the  conceptions  of  active  and  passive 
form,  or  of  law,  be  applied  without  express  or  tacit  recognition 
of  the  influence  of  immanent  ideas. 

Undoubtedly,  as  the  analogies  to  the  Self,  by  which  we 
interpret  the  constitution,  changes,  and  relations  of  things, 
become  more  vague  and  remote,  we  begin  to  lose  confidence 
in  the  perfect  validity  of  our  interpretation.  We  begin  to 
hesitate  as  to  where  we  shall  locate  the  explanatory  principle. 
But  this  point  of  vacillation  is  not  a  point  of  higher  privilege 
and  of  profounder  knowledge.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  a  point 
which  marks  the  deepening  shadows  of  human  'ignorance. 
Everywhere,  in  everything  and  in  every  transaction,  appears 
the  presence  of  ideas  —  so  far  as  any  feature  or  form  of  be- 
havior clearly  appears.  But  we  anon  commence  to  ask :  To 
whose  being  does  this  particular  idea  belong  ?  or,  What,  after 
all,  is  the  exact  idea  expressed  by  this  feature  or  behavior  of 
this  thing  ?  The  same  questions  are  often  enough  asked  by 


FORMS   AND  LAWS  351 

every  one  with  reference  to  one's  fellow-men ;  they  are  even 
sometimes  pertinently  asked  with  regard  to  one's  own  self. 
No  man  can  claim  to  know  throughout  all  the  ideas  which  he 
actually  realizes, —  much  less  his  own  entire  nature  and  all 
the  laws  which  it  obeys.  The  knower,  too,  is  constantly  ex- 
pressing ideas  not,  from  the  first  and  wholly,  his  own.  The 
very  growth  of  self-knowledge  is  the  increasingly  clear,  com- 
plete, and  satisfying  interpretation  of  the  actual  facts  of 
one's  own  development  in  terms  of  the  appropriate  ideas. 

In  the  case  of  the  forms  and  laws  of  the  higher  animal  life, 
we  do  not  hesitate  to  claim  a  valid  trans-subjective  use  of  this 
same  category  (the  category  of  the  "  Idea  ").  The  dog,  the 
elephant,  the  raven,  manifest  (as  no  one  can  doubt)  in  certain 
of  their  changes  of  form  and  relation  —  in  the  nature  and 
laws  of  the  species  and  of  the  individual  —  the  presence  and 
influence  of  ideas.  Some  of  the  ideas  they  express  are  their 
own ;  but  relatively  few  and  feeble  are  these  ideas  which  have 
actuality  in  the  streams  of  consciousness,  the  psychic  exist- 
ence, of  these  animals.  In  a  yet  more  wonderful  way  does  it 
seem  to  us  —  because  here  the  analogies  are  more  remote  — 
that  the  insects  generate,  and  grow,  and  enter  into  compli- 
cated social  connections,  changing  their  forms  and  obeying 
the  "  laws  of  their  being."  The  cilia  in  the  mucous  mem- 
brane of  the  frog's  throat,  and  the  corpuscles  in  his  blood,  and 
every  amoeboid  element  in  every  living  structure,  behaves  also 
as  though  it  had  its  own  outfit  of  controlling  ideas.  Nor  is 
this  much  less  true  of  the  way  the  rootlets  of  trees  seek  the 
gases  and  the  moisture  they  require  ;  or  the  way  that  flowers 
form  and  unfold  at  their  appointed  time.  And,  as  a  great 
astronomer  has  said,  every  planet  always  behaves  precisely  as 
though  it  knew  just  what  is  expected  of  it  in  view  of  the  com- 
plicated and  changing  relations  it  sustains,  at  each  moment, 
to  all  the  other  members  of  the  solar  system.  What  is 
expected  is  never  twice  exactly  alike.  But  the  ideas  that 
suggest  the  proper  combination  remain  unchanged ;  and  the 


352  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

planets  behave  themselves  according  to  the  particular  propor- 
tions required  by  each  special  combination  which  actually 
takes  place. 

When  it  is  claimed  that  the  popular  or  scientific  recognition 
of  forms  and  laws  in  any  single  case,  and  the  extension  of 
these  conceptions  over  the  whole  realm  of  objective  knowledge, 
imply  man's  confidence  in  the  universal  and  valid  application 
of  ideas  to  reality,  several  objections  are  wont  to  be  proposed. 
But,  as  has  already  been  indicated,  such  objections  do  not 
affect  the  truth  that  these  principles  are  coextensive  with  all 
human  knowledge ;  they  are  only  confessions  as  to  the  pres- 
ent limits  of  some  particular  branch  of  knowledge.  As  far  as 
man's  present  knowledge  extends,  and  as  far  as  knowledge 
can  be  conceived  of  as  extending  itself  in  the  future,  so  far 
extends  the  actuality  of  immanent  ideas.  The  objections  do 
not  hold  against  the  category  of  the  Idea :  they  only  inform 
us  of  what  we  knew  before ;  namely,  that  in  a  vast  number 
of  cases  we  do  not  yet  know  what  particular  ideas  are  being 
realized. 

It  is  in  vain  to  object  that  physical  science  does  not  intend 
to  be  thus  "  anthropomorphic  "  when  it  discourses  of  causes 
which  operate  among  things  in  a  formative  way,  or  of  laws 
that  apply  to  beings  which  give  no  sufficient  token  of  acting 
under  the  influence  of  their  own  conscious  ideas.  Physical 
science  does  not,  indeed,  intend  to  recognize  the  reality  of 
immanent  ideas,  by  its  doctrine  of  forms  and  laws ;  it  intends 
only  to  state  the  uniform  rules  afforded  by  its  generalizations 
from  facts.  The  rather  are  all  its  laws,  when  regarded  from 
its  own  point  of  view,  nothing  other  than  generalized  physical 
facts.  They  summarize  the  statement ;  the  event  happened 
thus  and  so,  in  fact,  once  and  again  ;  when  a  and  b  were  given 
in  fact,  under  the  actual  circumstances  n  —  q,  then  x  followed, 
in  fact,  according  to  the  formula  x  —  («  -f  b)  \J  n  —  q.  The 
•cause  of  the  event  x  is,  therefore,  to  be  found  in  a  and  b, 
which  combine  to  produce  it  in  measures  indicated  by  n—q; 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  353 

and  the  law  of  such  combinations  is  given  in  the  formula, 
(a  +  £>)  \j n—  q. 

But  to  all  such  representations  of  physical  science  the  reply 
is  pertinent  that,  in  truth,  the  facts  of  experience  are  not  fairly 
stated  in  this  way ;  nor  does  this  statement  cover  all  that 
science  means  by  its  discourse  about  forms  and  laws.  Just 
as  the  essential  factor  in  the  conception  of  cause  is  a  cognitive 
experience  of  forces,  so  is  the  essential  factor  in  the  concep- 
tions of  form  and  law  a  cognitive  experience  of  ideas.  Crude, 
unformed,  unidealized  facts  cannot  constitute  the  basis  of  a 
scientific  induction.  The  mind  of  man  knows  nothing 
about  mere  facts  —  about  bare,  untransformed  occurrences  in 
nature  or  in  the  self.  Facts,  when  known,  are  no  longer  mere 
occurrences,  or  mere  deeds  ;  they  are  known  as  the  behavior 
of  real  beings  that  have  certain  ideal  forms  and  that  act  in 
certain  ideal  ways.  What,  indeed,  is  that  "particularity" 
of  the  beings  which  takes  part  in  the  transaction,  but  their 
complex  form,  or  ideal  ways  of  existence  ?  What  is  the  par- 
ticular deed  they  accomplish  but  their  ideal  way  of  behavior  ? 
What  is  the  law  that  defines  the  uniform  action  of  physical 
beings  under  definite  relations,  but  the  ideal  way  which  they 
have  of  behaving  toward  one  another  ?  Physical  science 
itself  is  essentially  a  system  of  judgments  which  predicate 
ideas  (universals)  of  concrete  realities  (individuals).  If  by 
"  fact "  mere  doing  is  meant,  then  there  is  no  such  scientific 
knowledge  as  "  knowledge  of  fact ; "  for,  indeed,  every  fact  is 
scientifically  known  only  as  it  appears  in  its  connections  and 
relations  with  other  facts  —  under  conceptions  of  causation, 
order,  and  law. 

Moreover,  mere  statement  of  fact,  in  the  way  of  generaliza- 
tion and  without  any  recognition  of  the  ideal  shaping  of  the 
facts  and  of  their  relations,  is  not  all  that  science  means  by  its 
discourse  concerning  "  forms  "  and  "  laws."  The  insincerity 
or  the  flippancy  of  such  a  claim  is  apparent  at  once  when 
these  categories  are  examined  from  the  point  of  view  furnished 

23 


354  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

by  another  objection.  Granted,  it  is  now  urged,  that  man  is 
obliged  to  understand  all  the  being  arid  changes  of  things  as 
conformable  to  immanent  ideas  ;  still,  this  is  only  his  manner 
of  conception,  or  of  impressing  his  ideas  upon  things.  Such 
a  view  of  reality  is  anthropomorphic.  The  ideas  are  ours; 
there  is  no  good  reason  to  believe  that  they  actually  belong  to 
things.  Now,  this  objection  is  undoubtedly  impressive  ;  but 
it  should,  first  of  all,  be  noticed  that  it  contradicts  in  an 
important  way  the  objection  first  raised.  It  was  then  alleged 
that  scientific  cognition,  at  least,  —  and  whatever  may  be  said 
for  the  popular  mode  of  thinking  or  for  a  few  remaining  ad- 
herents to  a  discomfited,  idealistic  metaphysics  —  regards 
both  the  interior  and  the  reciprocal  transactions  of  things  as 
"  mere  facts,"  with  no  ideas  in  them  at  all.  Now,  however, 
it  is  alleged  that,  of  course,  physical  beings  and  events  have 
ideas  in  them;  but  these  ideas  are  unwarrantably  put  into 
them  by  the  minds  of  the  observers.  Of  course,  even  a  scien- 
tific man  is  an  anthropos  ;  therefore,  his  cognitions  are  neces- 
sarily "  anthropomorphic." 

We  entered  upon  this  attempt  at  a  system  of  metaphysics, 
after  having  put  ourselves  on  good  terms  with  all  the  cate- 
gories. That  the  universal  and  necessary  forms  of  knowledge 
are  the  forms  of  reality,  was  the  epistemological  postulate 
which  we  took  into  our  cheerful  confidence  from  the  very  first. 
What  a  criticism  of  the  categories  has  shown  is  this  :  without 
accepting  the  existence  in  reality  —  the  trans-subjective 
character  —  of  forms  and  laws,  knowledge  is  impossible. 
Knowledge  of  things  involves  the  understanding  of  things  as 
actually  conforming  to  immanent  ideas.  In  other  words, 
the  "  immanent  idea  "  is  a  category,  under  which  all  reality  is 
known  by  us  to  fall. 

At  this  point,  finally,  the  objection  to  fixing  a  meaning  for 
the  word  "  immanent  "  —  in  the  use  already  made  of  it  —  be- 
comes more  powerful  and  more  difficult  to  answer.  But  this 
objection  is  chiefly  due  to  the  obscurity  and  doubt  which 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  355 

hang  over  the  answer  that  must  be  given  to  the  problem  of 
"  localizing  "  the  ideas  that  are  known  somehow  to  belong  to 
the  reality  of  things.  To  speak  of  ideas  as  "  immanent "  in 
any  being  suggests  at  once  a  relation  which  is  primarily  of  a 
spatial  order,  and  to  which  there  clings  almost  inevitably  the 
original  suggestions  derived  from  the  perception  and  the 
imagination  of  things  as  "  in  space."  Thus  those  conscious 
ideas  which  are  always  the  partial,  and  are  often  the  more 
obvious,  explanation  of  the  changes  actively  produced  in  our 
bodies,  and  in  other  things,  as  well  as  certain  changes  more 
passively  experienced  as  due  to  the  action  of  things  upon  one 
another,  are  said  to  exist  "  in  "  us  —  with  at  least  a  semi-local 
meaning  to  the  phrase.  It  is  inevitable  that  we  should  regard 
the  ideas  of  other  men,  and  of  the  higher  animals,  as  seated 
(or  "  immanent")  in  those  thing-like  objects  which  constitute 
for  immediate  sense-perception  the  realities  themselves.  But 
surely,  in  all  such  cases,  it  is  not  necessary  to  regard  ideas  as 
entities  that  are  locally  situate,  under  terms  of  our  spatial 
picture  of  things,  within  the  things  themselves,  in  order  to 
justify  our  use  of  this  form  of  conception ! 

A  relation  of  spatial  extension,  or  of  position  after  the 
analogy  of  a  mathematical  point  within  a  plane  or  solid,  is- 
not  what  is  intended  by  the  actual  "immanency  of  the 
Idea."  It  is,  the  rather,  meant  that  ideation — in  the  most 
general  meaning  of  that  word  —  is  an  essential  factor  in  all 
man's  cognition  ;  and  that  when  ideation  reaches  the  certainty 
and  rational  construction  which  all  cognition  implies,  it 
guarantees  its  own  reality  as  belonging  to  the  objects  known. 
If,  from  the  episteinological  point  of  view,  I  am  compelled  to 
acknowledge  that  I  impress  my  ideas  upon  all  other  things ; 
still,  from  the  ontological  point  of  view,  I  am  equally  com- 
pelled to  believe  that  things  reveal  their  ideas  to  me.  My 
entire  known  world  does,  indeed,  show  the  constructive  work 
of  the  formative  principles  of  my  intellect ;  but  I  am  a  part 
—  an  exceedingly  small  part,  without  doubt —  of  a  world  that 


356  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

is   far  larger    than   I,  and   that  includes   me  and  all  other 
ideas  and  other  things.     The  world  is  known  by  man  to  be 

—  in  every  particular,  as  well  as  when  regarded  in  its  totality 

—  a  system  of  intellectual  formative  principles,  to  which  his 
own  mental  existence  and  mental  activity  are  due.     So  that 
there  is  even  more  reason  to  affirm  that  the  ideas  immanent  in 
things  account  for  man's  ideas,  than  to  find  the  entire  account 
of  this  ideal  appearance  of  things  in  man's  ideating  activity. 

A  brief  recall  of  certain  conclusions  already  reached  will 
assist  us  further  in  the  effort  to  understand  what  is  properly 
meant  by  recognizing  the  principle  of  "  immanent  ideas  "  as 
among  the  most  undoubted  of  ontological  truths.  In  discuss- 
ing the  category  of  space  it  was  shown  that  a  critical  metaphys- 
ics does  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  man's  subjective  and 
relative  space-picture  of  the  world  is  a  copy  of  the  trans- 
subjective  and  absolute  Reality.  But  it  was  also  shown  that 
the  ultimate  explanation  of  this  universal  and  necessary  form 
of  man's  mental  representation  must  be  found  in  regarding 
.Reality  as  possessing  a  principle  of  differentiation,  upon 
whose  activity  all  separate  real  existences,  as  well  as  man's 
mental  representations  of  them,  continually  depend.  This 
conclusion  regarding  the  real  nature  of  space  involved  the 
category  of  force,  without  which  no  trans-subjective  ground 
for  the  formal  category  is  conceivable.  Space  is  that  form  of 
the  differentiation  of  One  Force  which  secures,  in  the  unity 
of  one  system,  a  multiplicity  of  different  things.  But  now  we 
have  seen  that  man's  cognitive  experience  will  not  tolerate 
an  explanation  which  leaves  this  self-differentiating  and  self- 
distributing  Force,  to  whose  work  all  the  actual  changes  of 
condition  and  relation  in  the  world's  being  are  due,  bereft  of 
ideas.  For  the  very  essence  of  things  is  in  their  form  ;  —  the 
"  whatness  "  of  every  being  is  always  an  ideal  affair.  And 
the  essence  of  the  behavior  of  things  is  found  in  the  laws 
they  obey  while  changing  their  relations  to  one  another,— 
the  ideas  to  which  they  customarily  consent.  To  join  ideas 


FORMS   AND  LAWS  357 

with  force  in  all  our  knowledge  of  things,  —  the  ideas,  as  well 
as  the  force,  not  being  considered  to  be  merely  a  subjective 
form  but  also  the  real  possession,  the  essential  constitution  of 
things,  —  this  is  to  assert  the  "  immanency  "  of  ideas.  For 
ideas  are  not  immanent  in  reality,  when  they  are  im- 
agined as  spatially  enclosed  by  the  reality,  but  when  they  are 
rationally,  and  in  a  certified  way,  included  in  our  cognition  of 
reality.  The  "  immanent  idea  "  joins  hands  with  "  immanent 
force"  to  explain  to  the  mind  the  inmost  nature  of  that  real 
Being  to  which  they  both  belong. 

It  is  instructive  to  notice  how  ready  men  are  to  recognize 
the  presence  in  tfieir  own  bodily  and  mental  existence  of 
ideas  and  forces  not  consciously  their  own.  You  can  easily 
explain  to  the  unlearned  man  that  his  heart  beats,  his  eyes 
move,  his  blood  flows,  his  brain  functions,  his  glands  secrete, 
and  his  thoughts,  volitions,  and  emotions  come  arid  go,  only 
very  partially  as  he  consciously  wills  and  knows  what  actually 
takes  place.  This  is  to  say,  that  the  forces  and  ideas  of 
nature  account  for  much  which  is  effected  in  himself.  His  own 
ideas  assist  in  the  explanation  of  what  he  is,  and  does,  only  in 
a  limited  way.  Each  human  being,  body  and  mind,  in  respect 
of  his  changes  of  internal  condition  or  of  external  relation, 
is  only  partially  his  own ;  he  is  very  largely  the  child  and 
possession  of  nature,  —  the  continuous  product  of  that  larger, 
other  Being,  which  everywhere  penetrates  his  Self,  and  yet 
which  must  be  thought  of,  and  known,  as  not  identical  with  that 
self.  That  is  to  say,  his  own  conscious  force  and  ideas,  and 
the  forces  and  ideas  of  an  Other,  of  which  he  is  not  conscious, 
are  both  always  immanent  in  the  complete  self-hood  of 
every  man.  By  immanency,  in  both  cases,  is  meant  that 
inner  necessity  of  relation  which  belongs  to  an  indispensable 
explanatory  principle. 

Again,  then,  we  repeat  that  the  reality  of  the  immanent 
idea  as  a  category  is  indisputable.  Objections  to  this  view 
are  due  either  to  ignorance  or  to  the  misapplication  of  terms 


358  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

by  a  limited  and  merely  figurative  use  of  them.  The  legit- 
imate and  necessary  use  of  this  category  is  limited  only  by 
the  extent  of  human  knowledge.  Without  it  knowledge  is 
impossible  ;  and  therefore,  all  reality  is  known  to  man  as  a 
system  of  active  and  formative  ideas.  The  world  of  things 
known  by  the  senses  and  by  self-consciousness  is  a  Unity 
of  Will,  everywhere  manifesting  itself  as  an  infinite  variety 
of  different  beings  under  the  guidance  of  immanent  ideas. 
The  effort  to  escape  from  this  conclusion  only  reacts  upon 
itself.  Could  the  effort  completely  succeed,  it  would  result  in 
the  complete  nullification  of  knowledge.  For  the  subjection 
of  reality  to  the  idea  is  necessarily  co-extensive  with  the 
entire  extent  of  human  knowledge.  Indeed,  that  is  just  what 
knowledge  is,  —  the  recognition  of  the  ideal  character  of 
concrete  realities  and  of  actual  events. 

Whose  ideas  are  these  that  are  immanent  in  the  World  of 
selves  and  of  things  ?  A  partial  answer  to  this  lofty  and 
somewhat  vague  but  most  important  inquiry  has  already  been 
gained.  We  are  irresistibly  led  on  from  the  facts  of  the  in- 
teraction of  elements  under  law  to  the  existence  of  a  supreme 
Unity  which  may  serve  as  a  real  locus  for  the  existence  of 
controlling  ideas.  As  Teichmiiller,  in  his  Darwinism  and 
Philosophy,  says :  "  The  interaction  of  all  the  elements  pre- 
supposes laws  which  go  beyond  the  existence  of  each  sepa- 
rate element,  and  embrace  all  particular  things  in  a  unity. 
Whoever,  therefore,  assumes  any  laws  of  nature  whatever, 
must  also  assume  a  system  of  laws,  and  must  consequently 
refer  to  one  ultimate  unity  or  to  an  ultimate  end."  The  ideas 
therefore,  belong  to  that  Being  whose  Force  has  been  rec- 
ognized as  the  "unchanging  core"  of  all  concrete  realities, 
the  Cause  of  all  change,  the  Principle  of  all  becoming,  the 
trans-subjective  Ground  of  the  formal  categories  of  time  and 
space ;  and  the  nature  of  whose  existence  authenticates  all 
pure  science  as  the  result  of  man's  measuring  and  calculat- 
ing activities.  The  ideas,  in  reality,  must  be  joined  with  this 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  359 

Unity  of  Will.  But  to  join  Will  and  Idea  together  as  com- 
bined explanatory  principles  of  all  real  existences  and  all 
actual  occurrences,  is  to  provide  the  most  essential  factors 
in  the  conception  of  an  Absolute  Self.  It  is,  indeed,  to  con- 
struct the  Being  of  the  World  after  the  analogy  of  the  Self. 
It  is  anthropomorphic.  But  it  is  a  species  of  anthropomor- 
phism, from  which  human  knowledge  can  in  no  way  free 
itself ;  and  without  which  we  are  obliged  to  confess  that  not 
only  the  metaphysics  of  the  schools,  but  also  the  metaphysics 
of  science  and  the  metaphysics  of  life,  becomes  self-contra- 
dictory and  absurd. 

It  is,  finally,  in  connection  with  the  elaborate  scientific  con- 
ceptions of  law  that  the  principle  of  causation  returns  upon 
us  for  further  consideration.  The  connection  of  the  more 
primitive  conception  of  causation  with  the  exercise  of  force 
in  relation  to  objects,  and  with  the  intent  to  carry  out  our 
own  ideas  by  effecting  changes  in  things,  has  already  been 
noticed.  It  is  only  as  a  result  of  the  mature  developments 
which  require  a  growing  experience  of  the  system  of  things, 
that  a  conception  corresponding  to  that  which  modern  men 
attach  to  this  principle  is  attained.  The  immature  will  acts 
in  ways  that  are  full  of  caprice  and  ignorance.  It  neither 
knows  itself,  what  it  wants,  nor  things,  what  they  can  do  to 
it  or  will  suffer  from  it.  This  raw,  irrational  self,  whether 
in  the  individual  or  in  the  race,  constructs  its  conception 
of  nature,  or  of  the  gods,  after  its  own  pattern.  In  doing 
this,  it  has  the  warrant  of  all  that  lies  deepest  in  human 
nature,  and  of  all  that  is  most  potent  in  the  history  of  human 
development.  Its  essential  metaphysics  is  not  so  much  at 
fault ;  but  its  ignorance  is  its  curse.  The  modern  concep- 
tions of  a  "  universal  reign  of  law,"  of  a  rigid  "  uniformity  of 
Nature,"  or  a  Unity  of  blind,  unreasoning  Force,  are  personi- 
fications of  the  forces  and  ideas,  projected  into  things  on  the 
basis  of  a  postulated  analogy  between  them  and  us,  in  essen- 
tially the  same  way.  At  bottom  the  modern  conceptions  are 


360  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY. 

just  as  truly  anthropomorphic  as  the  earlier  conceptions  were. 
But  the  man  whose  "  form  "  the  conceptions  bear  is  a  some- 
what improved  man,  —  more  rational,  more  influenced  by 
definite  ideas,  and  better  acquainted  with  the  truth  that  his 
own  brief,  self-centred  life  is  surrounded  and  controlled  by 
an  all-inclusive  and  eternal  Life. 

Just  so  long  and  so  far,  however,  as  the  principle  of  cau- 
sation is  made  the  equivalent  of  a  rigid  and  machine-like 
construction  of  Reality,  it  suffers  inevitably  from  the  imper- 
fections and  errors  that  belong  to  such  a  conception.  It 
becomes  increasingly  necessary  to  recognize  the  truth  —  as 
a  truth  stamped  into  the  very  nature  of  the  human  mind  and 
set  in  every  feature  of  the  Mind  of  Nature  —  that  all  talk  of 
a  "  principle  of  causation  "  which  does  not  mean  to  recognize 
Will  and  immanent  Ideas  at  the  Ground  of  things,  deals  with 
unmeaning  and  senseless  figures  of  speech.  That  is,  indeed, 
just  what  a  "  principle  of  causation "  necessarily  means  — 
Will  energizing  in  conformity  to  ideal  forms  and  aims. 

In  further  proof  of  the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  forms 
and  laws,  let  it  be  noticed  to  what  all  our  so-called  causal 
explanations  really  amount.  The  mind  regards  the  principle 
of  causation  as  fully  satisfied  only  when  the  different  real 
beings  of  the  world  are  considered  as  so  connected  that  the 
forces,  to  which  their  internal  changes  of  condition  or  their 
external  changes  of  relation  are  referred,  follow  some  law  or 
regular  order  of  occurrence.  It  is  this  which  is  involved  in 
all  those  defective  and  questionable  forms  of  statement  which 
the  particular  sciences  have  adopted  for  this  principle.1  A 
Unity  of  Force  distributed  in  accordance  with  immanent 
ideas,  —  this  is  the  ontological  implicate  of  the  modern  scien- 
tific view  of  the  world  of  reality.  Every  thing,  and  every 
element  of  every  thing,  behaves  in  accordance  with  both  its 
own  nature  and  also  its  relation  to  other  things  and  elements, 

1  For  the  discussion  of  this  principle  from  the  epistemological  point  of  view, 
see  the  chapter  on  "  Sufficient  Reason,"  chap,  x.,  Philosophy  of  Knowledge 


FORMS  AND  LAWS  361 

in  the  unity  of  a  connected  system.  With  less  metaphysics  than 
this,  the  entire  modern  conception  of  the  universal  application 
of  the  causal  principle,  or  the  so-called  "  reign  of  law,"  must 
be  left  where  Hume  left  it.  Nothing  remains  of  the  principle 
but  subjective  custom,  together  with  the  feeling  of  expecta- 
tion which  custom  creates.  For  when  criticism  adds  to  this 
purely  subjective  description  of  the  principle  an  a  priori,  and 
so  objective,  explanation,  like  that  given  to  it  by  Kant,  this  is 
clone  in  reliance  on  an  acquaintance  with  the  ontological 
secrets  of  the  Self.  A  unity  of  mind-force,  functioning  ac- 
cording to  its  own  immanent  ideas  (the  so-called  categories), 
creates,  we  are  told,  the  causal  connections,  the  objective 
laws,  of  Nature.  Thus  the  principle  of  causation  has  its  met- 
aphysical source  revealed  in  that  it  is  recognized  as  belong- 
ing to  the  inmost  constitution  of  man's  intellect.  Even  the 
illusory  and  sceptical  result  which  follows  the  attempt  ta 
apply  the  category  beyond  the  realm  of  the  phenomenally 
real  is,  according  to  the  Kantian  doctrine,  a  revelation  of  the 
ontological  doctrine  of  mind.  This  view  of  the  principle  of 
causation,  however,  leaves  man,  both  on  his  physical  and  on 
his  rational  side,  cut  off  from  all  actual  connection  with  the 
extra-mentally  Real.  Nature  is,  indeed,  the  child  of  man  ; 
but  whose  child  is  man  himself  ?  To  this  question  science 
replies  that  he  is  the  child  of  Nature.  But  Kant  can  only 
reply  by  a  non-scientific,  vacillating,  and  often  wholly  un- 
intelligible reference  to  an  unknowable  "  Thing-in-itself " 
Being  of  the  World,  which  somehow  becomes  (we  cannot  say 
"  causally  ")  related  to  an  unknown  "  thing-in-itself "  being 
of  man. 

The  moment,  however,  the  nature  of  those  categories  which 
are  implied  in  the  principle  of  causation  is  clearly  discerned, 
the  principle  itself  becomes  a  guide  to  the  central  truth  of 
metaphysical  system.  For  this  principle  shows  how  far  the 
intellectual  and  scientific  development  of  man  has  gone  in 
bringing  before  his  own  clear  consciousness  the  truth  of 


362 


A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 


all  Reality :  All  selves  and  all  things  have  their  changing 
places  and  functions  in  the  one  system,  because  the  connec- 
tion of  them  all  is  guaranteed  and  accomplished  by  the  One 
Will  in  its  progressive  realization  of  its  own  Ideas.  The 
whole  of  Reality  is,  in  fact, — 

"An  endless  weaving 

To  and  fro, 
A  restless  heaving 
Of  life  and  glow." 

But  the  meaning  of  this  fact  is  found,  and  its  ultimate  cause 
discoverable,  only  when  we  introduce  the  conception  of  an 
eternal,  omnipresent  u  formative  Spirit." 


CHAPTER  XIV 

TELEOLOGY 

No  other  topic  connected  with  the  attempt  to  frame  a  valid 
Theory  of  Reality  has  been  more  thoroughly  discussed  for 
two  thousand  years  than  the  conception  of  final  purpose. 
One's  views  upon  the  subject  of  teleology  may,  therefore,  be 
fitly  thought  to  decide  in  large  measure  the  essential  character 
of  the  system  of  metaphysics  one  is  inclined  to  espouse. 
What  do  you  conclude  as  to  the  objects  of  your  experience  — 
both  selves  and  things  —  in  their  relations  to  ideal  ends  ? 
The  answer  which  is  given  to  this  question  goes  a  long  way 
toward  fixing  the  entire  mental  and  practical  attitude  toward 
Life  and  toward  Reality.  But  the  very  thoroughness  and 
vigor  with  which  the  discussion  of  the  teleological  problem 
has  been  conducted  for  so  many  centuries  obviates  the  neces- 
sity for  ourselves  going  over  the  same  details.  The  facts 
upon  which  the  different  views  are  made  to  depend  remain 
essentially  unchanged.  They  may  seem  to  be  increased  or 
diminished  in  number,  and  to  deepen  or  fade  away  as  respects 
their  vital  coloring;  but  their  significance  and  the  problem 
they  propose  for  the  thinker's  solution  abide  ever  the  same. 
Nor  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  arguments  for,  or 
objections  against,  any  of  the  different  main  positions  which 
have  hitherto  been  adopted  by  the  world's  thinkers  can  be 
altered  in  any  important  way. 

It  is  needful  for  our  purpose,  therefore,  only  briefly  to 
define  our  own  positions  with  reference  to  the  facts,  argu- 
ments, and  conclusions  covered  by  the  word  "  Teleology." 


364  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

The  question  proposed  in  this  chapter  is  scarcely  more  diffi- 
cult than  the  following:  How  does  the  Theory  of  Reality 
which  has  already  been  advocated  orient  itself  with  reference 
to  the  principal  conceptions  which  are  gathered  into  the  doc- 
trine of  final  purpose,  or  ideal  ends  ?  But  even  this  com- 
paratively simple  question  will  be  furthered  if  its  answer 
is  introduced  by  three  remarks  which  a  study  of  the  history 
of  opinion  suggests  and  confirms.  First:  there  are  certain 
facts  about  which  no  dispute  is  possible ;  and  these  facts  are 
themselves  of  such  a  nature  that  they  cannot  even  be  ex- 
pressed without  introducing  the  conception  of  ideal  ends  as- 
necessary  to  the  interpretation  of  the  facts.  Just  as  concep- 
tions of  form  and  of  law,  when  applied  to  the  objects  of  man's 
knowledge,  have  no  meaning  unless  the  actuality  of  ideal  for- 
mative principles  be  admitted,  so  conceptions  of  serviceable 
internal  relations  between  the  parts  of  things,  or  of  external 
relations  of  the  fitness  of  one  thing  to  another,  prove  utterly 
meaningless  unless  the  influence  in  reality  of  ideal  ends  be 
admitted.  In  a  word,  these  facts  cannot  be  stated  as  mere 
facts,  separate  from  ideas  ;  as  facts,  they  are  transactions  of 
things  that  are  necessarily  interpreted  as  conforming  to  ideas. 
The  point  where  reflection  refuses  to  recognize  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  facts  determines  one's  theory  of  final  purpose  as 
an  explanatory  principle  of  Reality. 

Second  :  the  difference  in  the  position  along  the  line  of  fact 
at  which  different  thinkers  refuse  to  admit  in  their  theory  of 
reality  the  actual  presence  and  formative  influence  of  ideal 
ends  is  significant  of  a  vacillation  that  is  of  a  logical  and  epis- 
temological  order.  The  objector  to  the  refusal,  at  whatever 
point  it  comes,  might  well  enough  say,  "  Either  all  or  none." 
Either  admit  the  principle  of  "  purposiveness,"  everywhere 
in  the  known  system  of  selves  and  of  things,  and  give  to 
the  principle  wherever  found  the  same  sincere  and  whole- 
hearted interpretation;  or  else  deny  its  objective  existence 
anywhere  and  reject  it  throughout  as  explanatory  of  the 


TELEOLOGY  365 

being  and  transactions  of  things.  But  it  is  impossible  to 
deny  that  actual  final  purposes  are  explanatory  principles 
of  the  changes  in  condition  and  relation  of  some  things. 
Such  scepticism  would  undermine  all  knowledge  and  render 
social  life,  and  individual  and  generic  development,  absolutely 
impossible.  The  exact  place,  where  scepticism  begins,  or 
knowledge  ends  and  agnosticism  triumphs,  is  differently 
selected  by  different  thinkers.  It  is  always  very  instructive 
to  notice  the  alleged  grounds  on  which  this  exact  place  is 
selected;  if,  indeed,  it  can  be  fixed  even  by  the  thinker  him- 
self. In  few  cases,  if  any,  can  the  arrested  development  of 
interpretation  by  the  principle  of  purposiveness  be  defended 
with  a  strict  logical  consistency.  The  metaphysician  who 
hesitates  in  his  teleology  is  almost  certainly  doomed  to  be 
convicted  of  a  half-cowardly  inconclusiveness  in  his  dealing 
with  the  actual  behavior  of  the  concrete  beings  of  the  world. 
Either  all,  or  none,  of  our  known  Reality  sooner  or  later 
feels  the  influence  of  this  form  of  the  Idea. 

But,  third,  when  one  seeks  for  the  motif  of  these  intellectual 
differences  in  the  teleology  of  different  systems  of  metaphysics, 
-  whether  by  way  of  avowed  and  rational  conclusion,  or  of 
naive,  unconscious  submission  to  unrecognized  influences,  — 
some  admixture  of  the  ethical  and  the  religious  is  almost  cer- 
tain to  appear.  It  is  not  an  unmeaning  fact  of  human  history 
that  a  positive  and  even  dogmatic  ethics,  or  theology,  has 
been  accustomed  to  espouse  and  defend  a  pronounced  and 
extended  teleology  ;  while  agnosticism,  or  negation,  in  matters 
of  ethical  and  religious  reflection  has  customarily  taken  the 
opposite  position  toward  the  doctrine  of  final  purpose.  Theism 
has  always  based  itself  upon  the  so-called  "  teleological  argu- 
ment," in  one  form  or  another ;  materialism  and  atheism  have 
always  either  rejected  wholly  or  greatly  minimized  the  same 
argument.  This  they  have  done  by  refusing  either  to  accept 
the  alleged  facts  or  to  interpret  the  principle  of  purposiveness 
in  the  theisth  way.  Unbiased  judgment  and  calm  reasoning 


366  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

—  if  by  these  words  one  is  to  signify  freedom  from  influence 
by,  and  interest  in,  ethical  and  religious  considerations  —  is 
almost  nowhere  to  be  found  in  the  discussion  of  this  problem. 
He  who  claims  such  freedom  may  easily  be  suspected  either 
of  ignorance  or  of  the  intention  to  cover  up  the  real  issues  of 
the  problem  he  is  attempting  to  handle.  For  what  is,  in  fact, 
at  stake  in  all  these  discussions  is  just  this,  —  namely,  the 
idea  which  humanity  shall  find  itself  justified  in  entertain- 
ing as  to  the  Nature  of  Reality,  and  so  the  practical  attitude 
which  man  shall  assume  toward  this  objective  Idea. 

Upon  all  these  three  contested  matters  the  course  of  the 
critical  discussion  which  has  already  been  followed  leads  us  to 
take  our  positions  firmly.  Nothing  short  of  complete  thorough- 
ness here  would  comport  well  wifch  the  critical  work  already 
accomplished.  In  the  first  place,  we  find  it  impossible  to  limit 
anywhere  the  conception  of  final  purpose  in  its  application  to 
the  concrete  facts  of  reality,  —  anywhere,  that  is,  in  a  logical 
and  principled  way.  The  ignorance  of  man,  which  is  either 
partial  or  almost  complete  in  every  realm  of  inquiry,  limits  his 
ability  to  recognize  the  particular  final  purposes  served  by  the 
concrete  facts  of  his  experience.  The  obscurity  which  hangs 
like  an  impenetrable  cloud  over  the  beginning  and  the  conclud- 
ing portions  of  the  present  system  of  things  makes  it  im- 
possible for  him  to  demonstrate  the  final  aim  of  the  World's 
course.  The  scale  of  rising  ideas,  that  tower  one  above 
another  until  they  lose  themselves  in  the  heights  of  the  loftiest 
sesthetical  and  ethical  ideals,  or  that  lie  one  below  another 
until  imagination  cannot  longer  conjecture  the  ultimate  foun- 
dations of  reality,  is  too  vast  for  his  intuition  to  discern  surely 
or  for  his  calculation  to  measure  precisely.  But  wherever 
man's  knowledge  does  go,  there  does  it  find  the  presence  in- 
dicated of  formative  principles  due  to  ideal  ends.  In  other 
words,  the  facts  of  purposiveness  seem  coextensive  with  the 
facts  of  knowledge.  All  things  and  all  minds  in  their  struc- 
ture, development,  and  relations  give  token  of  ideal  ends  to 


TELEOLOGY  367 

our  cognitive  faculties.  And  without  the  significant  influence 
of  this  category  there  is  not  a  thing  or  transaction  known  that 
is  really  and  satisfactorily  known.  The  Idea  as  an  explana- 
tory principle  of  the  course  of  events  —  whether  that  course 
consist  in  changes  of  internal  condition  or  in  changes  of 
external  relations  —  is  coextensive  with  all  known  Reality. 

On  the  second  point,  also,  we  cannot  allow  ourselves  to 
falter  in  the  logic  which  draws  conclusions  as  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  human  cognitive  experience.  All  Reality  is, —  as 
known  to  man  or  conceivable  by  man  —  a  system  of  beings 
and  processes  co-operating  in  the  realization  of  ideal  ends. 
This  system  is,  in  reality  and  in  its  inmost  nature,  purposive. 
Ideas  guide  it  all,  not  only  in  respect  of  the  forms  which  its 
particular  beings  take  and  its  particular  events  follow,  but 
also  in  respect  of  the  final  purposes  it  pursues.  We  do  not 
simply  imagine  that  this  may  be  so,  or  think  that  it  ought  to 
be  so  ;  we  know  that  it  is  so.  The  shaping  of  the  changes 
that  go  on  within  the  individual,  or  between  related  things,  so 
as  to  realize  ideal  ends,  is  an  integral  part  of  man's  expe- 
rience with  things.  When  these  ideas,  too,  are  declared  to  be 
"  immanent,"  the  adjective  is  not  used  with  a  spatial  or  purely 
figurative  meaning ;  it  is  only  asserted  that  this  aspect  of  the 
ideal  is  a  necessary  factor  in  the  rational  explanation  of  con- 
crete realities.  For  Reality,  in  general,  is  known  as  actually 
being  a  Unity  of  Force  guided  by  ideas  of  form  and  law  into 
processes  that  conform  to  ideal  ends.  Indeed,  final  purpose  is 
only  a  further  extension  of  the  Idea  beyond  that  given  to  it 
by  the  doctrine  of  real  forms  and  actual  laws.  Scepticism 
and  agnosticism  have  their  legitimate  place  in  contesting  all 
rash  and  inconsiderate  conclusions  as  to  what  are  the  ends 
served  by  particular  beings  and  particular  events,  or  by  the 
entire  system  of  selves  and  things.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
whole  known  and  knowable  world  must  be  conceived  of  as 
somehow  conforming  to  the  principle  of  teleology. 

And  with  reference  to  the  third  position  we  do  not  hesitate 


368  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

as  to  where  our  theory  of  reality  requires  us  to  be  found.  To 
make  universal  and  far-reaching  the  immanence  of  the  ideal, 
is,  of  course,  to  philosophize  in  a  way  serviceable  to  the 
interests  of  morals  and  religion.  But,  then,  this  is  itself 
chiefly  because  teleology  gives  continuity  to  human  knowledge, 
and  brings  within  the  ken  of  the  same  cognitive  activities  all 
the  varied  forms  of  human  experience.  The  whole  subject  of 
that  deplorable  schism  between  the  natural  and  the  moral,  be- 
tween the  object  of  knowledge  and  the  object  of  faith,  between 
the  merely  (  ?)  mechanical  and  the  purely  ideal,  or  the  phenom- 
enal reality  and  the  Thing-in-itself,  comes  to  the  fore  in  the 
discussions  of  teleology.  This  schism  we  distrust  and  abhor. 
It  is  not,  however,  by  the  identification  of  what  is  essentially 
unlike,  or  by  the  neglect  of  all  the  truths  and  interests  which 
belong  on  either  side  of  the  chasm,  that  one  may  expect  the 
chasm  to  be  crossed.  It  is  rather  by  intelligent  recognition 
of  the  nature  of  that  ideal  Unity  which  belongs  to  the  knower, 
and  as  well  to  all  the  objects  which  he  knows  or  can  ever  expect 
to  know.  The  knowledge  of  this  knower  is  one,  —  a  unity  that 
is  a  continuity  of  development  under  guidance  of  the  ideal. 
This  ideal  is  that  of  the  perfect  Self ;  and  this  perfect  self 
cannot  be  a  mere  knower,  much  less  a  mere  knower  of  things, 
without  knowledge  of  its  own  self,  and  of  that  larger  and  uni- 
versal Self  which  unifies  all  other  selves  and  things.  And 
just  as  there  are  assthetical  and  ethical  "momenta"  in  all 
knowledge,  so  there  are  at  least  fragmentary  and  shadowy 
sesthetical  and  ethical  factors  in  all  things.  All  Things 
actually  serve  some  ends.  The  teleological  construction  of 
the  system  of  things  and  selves  is,  therefore,  a  most  important 
conception  to  cherish;  but  the  conception  must  be  subjected 
to  criticism,  if  one  would  not  willingly  be  divided  against  one's 
self,  in  a  World  that  would  thus  be  made  at  hopeless  contra- 
diction with  its  larger  Self. 

All  things  and  events  are  in  fact  purposeful;  the  conclusion 
is  legitimate,  which  recognizes  in  the  real  world  the  universal 


I 


TELEOLOGY  369 

presence  of  immanent  ideal  ends;  the  basis,  but  not  the 
completion,  of  the  edifice  of  moral  and  religious  ideals  as 
belonging  to  the  inmost  Nature  of  Reality  is  thus  made  a 
rational  tenet  of  metaphysical  philosophy;  —  such  are  the 
three  important  positions  to  which  we  find  ourselves  brought 
by  reflection  upon  the  fundamental  facts  and  primitive  truths 
of  man's  experience  with  both  selves  and  things. 

The  psychological  genesis  of  the  conception  of  final  purpose 
is  not  at  all  obscure,  although  it  is  complex.  This  conception 
arises  in  experience  primarily  when  the  satisfaction  of  some 
desire  is  willed,  and  then  those  means  for  its  actualization  are 
employed  which  it  is  apprehended  will  result  in  actual  satis- 
faction of  the  desire.  The  completer  conception  is,  indeed, 
that  of  intelligent  and  purposeful  willing,  —  of  action  guided 
by  ideas  in  the  plan  to  attain  the  ends  set  by  ideas.  Thus  there 
is  ground  in  experience  for  the  description  which  Yolkmann 
gives  of  all  the  higher  forms  of  behavior  on  the  part  of  the 
Willing  Self.1 

No  immediate  causal  connection  exists,  however,  for  man's 
apprehension,  between  any  particular  desire  and  its  satisfac- 
tion ;  and  all  that  the  later  developments  of  desire  can  do  is 
to  lend  to  the  desire  an  ideal  form  which  opens  or  expands 
the  outlook  to  its  satisfaction.  A  detachment  of  the  desire 
from  the  original  idea  is,  therefore,  necessary  ;  and  as  well,  a 
further  attachment  of  the  desire  to  that  series  of  ideas  which 
experience  has  found  to  lie  between  it  and  the  original  desire 
(the  "means  "to  the  "end").  The  means  themselves  then 
become  desired  and  selected  as  means  to  an  ideal  end.  Thus 
the  causal  activity  of  the  self  comes  to  have  fuller  play  with 
the  first  and  last  pair  of  the  members  to  the  series  in  its  own 
inner  world ;  while  the  causal  activity  of  things  determines 
the  median  members  of  the  series  in  the  external  world.  We 
can  choose  the  ends  we  will  try  to  secure  and  the  course  of 
actions  we  will  follow  in  the  effort  to  attain  them ;  but  these 

1  Lehrbuch  der  Psychologie,  II.,  p.  451  f. 
24 


370  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

very  choices  link  us  in  with  those  courses  of  extra-mental 
changes  that  lie  beyond  our  choice,  and  often  beyond  the 
reach  of  our  ideas.  Thus  does  final  purpose,  or  the  willing  of 
desired  ideal  ends,  mediate  and  bind  together  the  combinations 
that  constantly  go  on  between  the  life  of  the  self  and  the 
world  of  external  things. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  trace  the  development  of  this  concep- 
tion of  final  purpose,  or  its  application  to  the  entire  being  and 
life-course  of  the  Self.  As  we  have  elsewhere  said,  on  gather- 
ing together  the  conclusions  of  a  detailed  descriptive  history 
into  those  principles  which  are  most  fundamental  and  univer- 
sal in  their  control  over  human  life  and  destiny :  "  Activity 
to  some  purpose  is  the  ruling  principle  of  mental  development." 
In  this  complex  life,  under  the  keener  eye  of  trained  experi- 
ence many  final  ends  of  a  physical  and  psychical  sort,  which 
the  self  at  first  unconsciously  serves  or  attains,  become  con- 
sciously discerned  and  followed.  Indeed,  the  growth  of  self- 
knowledge  is  largely  just  this,  —  namely,  the  making  of  the 
ideal  ends  which  our  so-called  "  nature  "  sets  for  us  to  be  our 
own  consciously  and  intelligently  adopted  ideas.  To  attain 
genuine  self-knowledge  one  must  know  what  the  self  is  meant 
for,  as  truly  as  what  is  the  matter-of-fact  working  of  its 
mechanism  of  body  and  mind.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  under 
the  laws  of  practice  and  habit,  many  ideal  ends,  that  were  at 
first  realizable  only  through  conscious  discrimination  and 
voluntary  effort,  come  to  realize  themselves  smoothly  and 
unconsciously,  in  a  so-called  automatic  and  mechanical  way. 
For  the  teleology  of  the  human  being  requires  that  in  the 
pursuit  and  attainment  of  many  ends  the  interference  of  con- 
scious ideas  shall  be  removed.  Thus  do  art  and  genius  often 
show  the  man  as  he  is  swayed  and  guided  by  the  ideas  of 
"  another  "  into  a  path  whose  end  is  the  more  perfect  realiza- 
tion of  the  highest  and  noblest  ideals.  A  human  being  that 
were  not  through  and  through  actually  penetrated  with  pur- 
posiveness  would  not  rise  to  the  rank  of  the  lowest  conceivable 


TELEOLOGY  371 

physical  and  psychical  mechanism.  For,  as  will  appear  sub- 
sequently, the  very  conception  of  a  "  mechanism  "  is  meaning- 
less without  illumination  from  the  idea  of  means  and  ends. 
And,  in  fact,  the  more  I  know  of  myself,  the  more  do  I  know  of 
those  ideal  ends  of  my  being  which  I  have  been  consciously  or 
unconsciously  realizing.  The  lamentation  that  no  one  knows 
surely,  or  with  any  approach  to  completeness,  what  is  the  last 
and  highest  end  of  his  particular  existence  and  development, 
is  a  valid  confession  of  ignorance ;  but  it  is  not,  in  the  slightest 
degree,  a  fact  which  prejudices  the  universal  applicability  of 
the  conception  of  final  purpose  in  self-knowledge. 

The  validity  of  this  form  of  knowledge  for  the  being  of 
man  is,  like  that  of  every  other  category,  within  the  neces- 
sary limitations  of  all  human  mental  life,  immediate  and 
undoubted.  If  I  examine  that  "  stream  of  consciousness  "  I 
call  myself,  as  such,  I  find  that  its  nature  and  its  course 
require  the  conception  of  final  purpose  for  its  interpretation. 
I  know  indubitably  that  I  reach  the  satisfaction  of  my  desires 
by  willing  a  certain  series  of  occurrences  which  involve  both 
subjective  and  objective  factors,  causally  connected  and  result- 
ing in  the  actual  satisfaction  of  these  desires.  And  the  de- 
veloping science  of  humanity  consists,  in  no  small  measure,  in 
learning  how  certain  ideas,  which  arise  within  the  stream  of 
consciousness  (ideas  of  the  final  purpose  of  man  in  general 
and  of  the  individual  in  particular) ,  enable  one  better  to  under- 
stand the  nature  and  connections  of  the  entire  stream.  This 
is  the  meaning  of  the  modern  tendency  to  render  all  the 
sciences  of  man  more  thoroughly  psychological. 

Nor  can  there  be  reasonable  dispute  over  the  contention 
that  certain  thing-objects  are  known,  in  respect  of  their  own 
structure  and  development,  to  come  under  the  conception  of 
final  purpose.  The  judgments  which  affirm  that  this  concep- 
tion is  applicable  to  certain  physical  beings  are  as  truly  and 
indisputably  cognitive  as  any  judgments  can  possibly  be. 
The  fact  which  such  judgments  affirm  is  precisely  this, —  the 


372  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

complex  fact  of  purposiveness  as  belonging  to  the  very  exist- 
ence and  essence  of  the  thing.  To  take  the  stock  example 
—  much  used  and  much  derided :  the  entire  structure  and  all 
the  functions  of  the  human  eye  are  known  as  coming  in  fact 
under  the  conception  of  final  purpose.  This  statement  is  as 
true  of  the  picture  of  this  organ  when  given  by  the  most 
elaborate  modern  treatise  on  anatomy  and  physiology  as  it  is  of 
the  most  nai've  and  uninstructed  conception  of  the  same  organ. 
Indeed,  what  the  modern  treatise  does,  for  the  most  part,  is  to 
elaborate  and  give  precision  and  detail  to  the  teleology  of  this 
particular  thing.  For  without  the  conception  of  final  purpose, 
"  structure  "  and  "  functions  "  are  words  that  have  no  mean- 
ing. The  very  term  "  human  eye,"  means  a  structure  whose 
function  is  to  enable  man  to  see.  Every  part  of  this  complex 
mechanism  answers  with  equal  promptness  and  cogency  to  the 
same  demand  of  the  inquiring  mind.  A  "  lens  "  is  an  arrange- 
ment of  elements  whose  behavior  serves  the  end  of  transmit- 
ting and  reflecting  light ;  and  the  lenses  of  the  eye  have,  in 
fact,  this  final  purpose  in  the  structure  and  functions  of  the 
eye.  The  retina  is  a  complex  structure,  about  the  details  of 
which  there  are  still  some  doubtful  points;  but  about  the 
final  purpose  of  this  part  of  the  organ,  there  exists  no  doubt ; 
it  has  the  ideal  end  of  serving  as  a  sensitive,  nervous  screen  on 
which  the  image  of  the  object  can  be  formed,  and  from  which 
the  appropriate  nervous  changes  can  be  transmitted  to  the 
visual  areas  of  the  brain. 

To  say  that  all  such  teleological  statement  of  fact  is 
"  anthropomorphic  "  has  absolutely  no  influence  on  a  conten- 
tion like  ours.  For  our  contention  is  just  this,  that  the  facts 
of  many  of  man's  most  assured  cognitions  are  concrete  examples 
of  the  rule  of  final  purpose  over  things.  Or,  to  put  the  case  in 
a  slightly  different  way,  certain  things  are  known,  as  a  matter 
of  incontestable  fact,  to  be  composed  of  parts  and  elements 
which  are  arranged,  and  which  function  together,  so  as  actu- 
ally to  secure  ideal  ends.  To  call  such  cognitions  "  anthropo- 


TELEOLOGY  373 

morphic  "  is  to  do  them  honor  rather  than  to  discredit  them. 
It  is  cowardice  to  be  frightened  away  from  the  legitimate  logi- 
cal fruits  of  such  a  many-branched  tree  of  knowledge ;  and  it 
is  folly  to  deny  the  existence  of  these  fruits,  simply  because  it 
is  with  the  eyes  of  reason  that  we  see  them  hanging  there. 
Knowledge  is  not  less  trustworthy,  and  things  are  not  less  real, 
when  things  are  known  to  have  such  a  structure  and  such 
functions  as  to  comport,  in  reality,  with  ideal  ends. 

The  comparative  crudity  of  the  physico-chemical  science  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  with  which  Kant  was 
acquainted,  led  him  to  limit  the  facts  of  final  purpose  to 
certain  more  obviously  organic  natural  products.  "  Things," 
he  declared,  u  regarded  as  natural  purposes,  are  organized 
beings  ; "  1  and  "  only  a  product  of  such  a  kind  can  be  called  a 
natural  purpose,  and  this  because  it  is  an  organized  and  self- 
organizing  being."  Elsewhere  he  even  affirms  that  such  an. 
organized  and  purposeful  being  must  have  its  cause,  "  not  in 
the  mechanism  of  nature,  but  in  a  being  whose  faculty  of 
action  is  determined  through  concepts :  "  in  short,  "  it  is 
requisite  that  its  form  be  not  possible  according  to  mere 
natural  laws."  It  is  scarcely  necessary  again  to  remind  our- 
selves that  the  very  words  "  form,"  "  mechanism  of  nature," 
and  u  natural  laws,"  are  devoid  of  meaning  unless  applied  to 
forces  that  act  causally  in  conformity  to  ideas.  Indeed,  man's 
entire  thought  of  nature  is  only  that  of  a  Being  whose  action 
is  determined  through  concepts  ;  other  action  than  this  is  in- 
conceivable as  resulting  in  any  such  "mechanism,"  "  system," 
"  unity,"  collection  of  forms  obeying  laws,  as  is  fitly  meant  by 
the  word  Nature  ;  and  surely  not  less  when  we  personify  the 
word  enough  to  spell  it  with  a  capital. 

But  special  attention  must  be  called  to  the  important  change 
which  modern  evolutionary  science  has  made  in  such  a  term 
as  that  employed  by  Kant,  —  "  an  organized  and  self -organizing 

1  Kritik  of  Judgment,  Part  II.,Div.  I,  heading  of  §  65.  The  other  sentences 
are  taken  from  this  and  the  preceding  article. 


374  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

being."  Chemistry  and  biology  —  not  to  speak  of  psychology 
—  have  outstripped  mathematical  physics  in  the  conception 
which  they  have  prepared  as  a  content  for  this  Kantian  phrase. 
By  this  statement  it  is  not  meant  that  the  distinction  between 
living  and  non-living  beings  has  been  abolished  or  made  less 
important  by  modern  science.  On  the  contrary,  this  distinc- 
tion is  now  more  clearly  established  than  it  was  in  the  time  of 
Kant.  For  it  is  now  known,  somewhat  better  than  was  then 
known,  what  is  the  "  Technic  of  nature  ; "  although  we  know 
scarcely  better  whether  the  "  womb  "  of  "  mother  Earth  "  can  be 
supposed  at  any  time  to  have  tolerated  such  a  generatio  cequi- 
voca  as  Kant  pronounced  absurd  (namely,  the  production  of  an 
organized  being  through  the  mechanics  of  crude,  unorganized 
matter).  What  is  known  clearly,  however,  and  in  spite  of 
all  continued  doubt  about  the  problem  of  the  beginnings  of  life, 
is  this :  Everything  is  u  an  organized  and  self-organizing 
being,"  in  no  insignificant  meaning  of  these  words. 

The  chemico-physical  and  biological  sciences  —  we  repeat 
—  in  their  most  modern  form  compel  us  to  regard  every  physi- 
cal thing,  whether  living  or  non-living,  as  an  "  organized  and 
self-organizing  being."  They  emphasize  the  declaration  of 
Schelling :  u  The  peculiarity  of  nature  rests  on  the  fact  that 
with  all  its  mechanism  it  is  yet  full  of  purpose."  Crystals 
do  not  grow,  indeed,  but  they  are  organized  in  teleological 
fashion  and  by  "  self-organizing  "  processes.  The  same  truth 
follows  with  respect  to  the  interior  structure  of  every  real 
Thing,  as  a  necessary  corollary  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
physical  elements  themselves.  Every  so-called  "  natural " 
being  is  a  composite  of  these  elements,  that  have  arranged 
themselves  in  definite  ways,  and  that  act  and  react  upon  each 
other  as  parts  of  a  quasi-organic  totality.  Strictly  regarded, 
this  totality  is  perpetually  organizing  itself  anew,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  specific  idea  which  belongs  to  its  own  kind  of 
existence. 

The  more  completely  the  grounds  of  this  organific  proced- 


TELEOLOGY  375 

ure  of  all  things  are  carried  back  to  the  original  and  unchang- 
ing constitution  of  the  atoms  themselves,  the  more  is  the 
"  self-organizing  being "  of  the  atoms  loaded  down  with  an 
ever-increasing  weight  of  content.  For  if  the  atoms  are  not 
themselves  organized  under  the  guidance  of  ideas,  by  the  ac- 
tivity of  still  more  primitive  elements,  they  none  the  less  bear 
the  marks  of  "  manufactured  articles."  That  is  to  say,  their 
nature  and  outfit  shows  them  adapted,  from  the  first,  to  serve 
an  almost  endless  variety  of  ideal  ends.  If  they  are  regarded 
as  not  developing  the  faculty  of  "  action  as  determined  through 
concepts,"  it  is  because  they  are  regarded  as  possessing  this 
faculty  from  the  first ;  and  only  thus  can  any  organization  or 
building  take  place,  whether  of  living  or  non-living  things. 
A  circle,  or  regular  hexagon,  inscribed  in  the  sand,  Kant 
thinks,  any  man  might  well  consider  a  sure  sign  of  final 
purpose  ;  but  why  not  the  geometrical  structure  of  the  sand 
itself,  considered  as  the  result  attained  by  the  action,  in  time, 
of  organific  forces  ? 

To  return  to  a  categorical  truth  emphasized  in  an  earlier 
chapter  (chap,  v.)  :  "  really  to  be"  a  Thing  is  to  possess  some- 
how the  faculty,  or  power,  of  running  through  a  certain  series 
of  changes  —  of  active  doings  and  passive  impressions  —  that 
corresponds  to  the  concept  of  that  particular  thing.  When 
any  being  ceases  to  have  this  faculty  or  power,  it  loses  all 
means  of  manifesting  itself  to  man's  mind  as  really  in  exist- 
ence at  all.  The  inherent  teleology,  or  purposeness  in  fact,  of 
every  real  thing  belongs  to  its  very  being  as  a  "  Thing" 

That  conception  of  final  purpose  which  simply  covers  the 
bare  being  of  a  thing,  considered  as  a  collection  of  self-organ- 
izing material  elements  (the  physical  "  in-itself-being  "  of  the 
natural  product),  is  indeed  very  inadequate.  Men  do  not 
make  things,  and  keep  them  in  existence,  with  the  simple 
purpose  of  having  the  things  exist ;  men  make  things  as 
means  either  to  an  enjoyment  of  them,  or  to  the  attainment 
of  other  ends  which  lie  beyond  and  above  the  manufactured 


376  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

articles.  Here  is  where  the  objection  of  Kant  to  what  he 
considered  an  unwarrantable  extension  of  the  very  conception 
of  purposiveness  found  an  entrance  into  his  teleology.  "  For  if 
all  things,"  he  argues,  "  must  be  thought  as  purposes,  then  to 
be  a  thing  is  the  same  thing  as  to  be  a  purpose,  and  there  is 
at  bottom  nothing  which  especially  deserves  to  be  represented 
as  purpose."  Here,  indeed,  is  a  most  curious  and  instructive 
mixture  of  truth  and  error.  It  does  not,  indeed,  follow  that 
"  being  a  Thing  "  = "  being  a  purpose,"  because  real  things 
are  much  more  than  mere  purposes ;  on  the  other  hand,  no 
thing  can  be  real,  can  really  be,  unless  it  conforms  its  elements 
and  their  functions  to  the  ideal  ends  of  that  particular  kind  of 
thing.  Or  to  speak  the  same  truth  from  another  point  of 
view  :  the  physical  elements,  in  their  combining  and  reciprocal 
functioning,  must  organize  every  physical  being  in  accordance 
with  certain  ideal  ends.  For  atoms  are  not  "  manufactured," 
simply  to  exist  themselves.  They  are  so  made  as  to  serve  the 
higher  uses  and  manifold  purposes  of  the  things  which  are 
composed  "  of"  them. 

In  man's  complete  cognitive  experience  with  things,  they 
serve  his  ends  and  he  serves  theirs  ;  and  he  also  observes,  or 
infers,  the  different  things  to  be  serving  each  other's  ends. 
This  is  what  Kant  calls  1  "  external  purposiveness,"  or  "  that 
by  which  one  thing  of  nature  serves  another  as  means  to  a 
purpose."  And  about  this  kind  of  purposiveness  he  makes 
the  following  truly  amazing  observation  :  "  There  is  only  one 
external  purposiveness  which  is  connected  with  the  internal 
purposiveness  of  organization,  and  yet  serves  in  the  external 
relation  of  a  means  to  an  end,  without  the  question  necessarily 
arising,  as  to  what  end  this  being  so  organized  must  have  ex- 
isted for."  This  is  the  organization  of  the  sexes  in  their 
mutual  relation  as  propagators  of  their  kind.  But  a  more 
refined  biological  study  of  this  very  example  leads  us  to  see 
that  the  entire  system  of  plant  and  animal  life  is  one  complex 

1  Kritik  of  Judgment,  Part  II.,  Appendix,  §  82. 


TELEOLOGY  377 

net-work  of  relations  under  the  principle  of  combining  internal 
and  external  purposiveness,  in  order  to  carry  out  an  indefi- 
nite variety  of  nearer  or  more  remote  ideal  ends. 

Nothing  is  more  mysterious  and  impressive  than  the  interac- 
tion of  natural  forces  —  both  those  that  are  internal  to  the 
organism  and  may  be  called  vital,  and  also  those  that  are  ex- 
ternal and  may  be  assigned  to  environment  —  in  the  propaga- 
tion and  development  of  species.  Small  wonder,  indeed,  that 
Schopenhauer  found  in  this  arrangement  some  of  the  shrewdest 
devices  of  the  "  Will-to-live,"  in  its  subjugation  of  all  existences, 
under  the  limitations  of  space,  time,  and  causation,  to  its  eter- 
nal and  relentless  purposes !  It  is  not  the  single  pair  alone 
that  is  concerned,  in  a  purposeful  way,  in  the  interests  of  the 
perpetuation  of  life.  Biological  evolution  regards  every  thing, 
and  every  transaction  of  the  physico-chemical  order,  in  the 
light  of  this  conception  of  "  Life,"  and  of  the  progress  of  liv- 
ing forms  toward  higher  and  still  higher  life.  Thus,  under 
the  conception  of  ideal  ends,  modern  biology  arranges  all  the 
beings  and  transactions  of  living  and  non-living  things  as 
somehow  terminating  in  man.  Arrived  at  this  stage  in  its 
pursuit  of  the  final  purpose  of  the  world's  course,  it  does  not 
stop  here.  It  transfers  all  the  principal  conceptions  and  funda- 
mental laws  of  biology  to  the  life  of  the  individual  man,  and 
to  the  life  of  the  human  race  in  history.  Undoubtedly  much 
of  this  so-called  science,  whether  it  take  the  name  of  "  genetic 
psychology,"  "anthropology,"  or  "sociology,"  amounts  to 
rather  a  vague  and  uncertain  generalization  of  facts  that 
belong  to  man's  descriptive  history,  —  the  expression  of 
which  in  accurate  terms  discloses  no  little  illusion  and  use  of 
misleading  and  inapplicable  figures  of  speech.  For  it  is  by 
no  means  self-evident  what  that  corresponds  to  any  actual 
processes,  or  to  any  real  connections,  is  meant  by  such  phrases 
as  "  heredity,"  «  survival  of  fittest,"  "  struggle  for  existence," 
"  generatio  univoca"  and  "  generatio  cequivoca"  "  epigenesis  " 
and  "  biogenesis,"  etc.,  when  applied  to  these  not  strictly  bio- 


378  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

logical  sciences.  But  that  the  concrete  beings  with  which  the 
theory  of  biological  evolution  primarily  deals  are  "  organized 
and  self-organizing,"  there  can  be  no  doubt.  Thus  this  theory 
distinctly  extends  what  Kant  called  the  conception  of  "ex- 
ternal purposiveness  "  over  all  the  phenomena  which  it  attempts 
to  handle.  Thus  the  most  thorough  biologist,  from  the  top- 
most peaks  as  his  scientific  standpoints,  describes  the  meaning 
of  that  part  of  the  universe  which  his  science  gives  him  to 
know  as  already  past,  —  in  the  words  of  Browning :  — 

"  So  far  the  seal 

Is  put  on  life  ;  one  step  of  being  complete, 
One  scheme  wound  up  ;  and  from  the  grand  result 
A  supplementary  reflux  of  light, 
Illustrates  all  the  inferior  grades,  explains 
Each  back  step  in  the  circle." 

From  the  same  point  of  view  the  man  of  science  looks  for- 
ward, and  in  the  name  of  science  confirms  the  hopeful  pre- 
dictions of  the  same  poet :  — 

"  For  things  tend  still  upward,  progress  is 
The  law  of  life,  man  is  not  Man  as  yet." 

There  are  always  — 

"  August  anticipations,  symbols,  types 
Of  a  dim  splendor  ever  on  before 
In  that  eternal  circle  life  pursues." 

To  object  that  such  forms  of  knowing  the  relations  of 
things,  and  the  series  of  changes  that  are  taking  place  in  the 
world,  are  mere  statements  of  fact,  and  may  be  wholly 
abstracted  from  the  idea  of  final  purpose  as  necessary  to 
explain  the  fact,  is  a  complete  mistatement  of  the  case.  For 
the  general  fact  is  itself  precisely  this :  the  fact  of  a  series 
of  infinitely  complex  and  constantly  changing  transactions, 
entered  into  by  all  the  concrete  beings  concerned,  in  such  a 
way  as  actually  to  realize  ideal  ends.  That  is  to  sa,y,  facts  of 
the  sort  which  the  theory  of  evolution  considers  cannot  be 


TELEOLOGY  379 

known  at  all,  otherwise  than  in  their  relation  to  some  teleolo- 
gical  conception.  The  meaning  of  the  entire  series  of  facts, 
as  actually  arranged  and  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  ideal 
ends  to  be  secured,  is  essential  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
facts  themselves. 

Any  one  instance  of  the  requisite  kind,  when  all  that  is 
implicated  in  its  description  has  been  critically  considered,  is 
quite  enough  to  show  that  "  external  purposiveness  "  is  every- 
where an  actualized  idea  in  Nature.  Let  one  reflect,  for 
example,  over  the  following  description  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  "  Perigord  Truffle  "  realizes  its  "  will  to  live,"  and 
to  possess  as  much  as  possible,  according  to  its  own  nature,  of 
that  Nature  from  whose  womb  it  springs.  The  following  is 
said  to  be  its  behavior,  "  for  a  fact :  "  "  The  spores  of  the 
truffle  are  of  different  sexes.  In  favorable  conditions,  and 
after  rupture  of  the  envelope  of  the  mother-cell  that  incloses 
them,  the  male  spores  emit  a  thin,  translucent  filament, 
terminated  by  a  spore  of  secondary  formation,  a  pseudo- 
spore,  in  which  the  fertilizing  plasma  is  contained.  This 
pseudo-spore,  whether  it  remains  on  the  surface  or  is  formed 
under  the  epidermis  is  impelled,  as  by  a  mysterious  instinct, 
to  move  out  toward  a  female  spore,  which  it  reaches  either 
directly  or  by  putting  forth  a  new  sprout.  .  .  .  The  fertiliza- 
tion, which  may  begin  a  week  after  the  spores  have  been  set 
free,  ordinarily  takes  one  to  two  days.  When  it  has  been 
accomplished,  the  female  spore  gives  out  what  are  called 
teleutospores,  which,  falling  to  the  ground,  give  rise  to  the 
mycelium  or  thread-like  vegetation,  more  or  less  temporary, 
which  in  its  turn  produces  the  tubercles."  1 

Nature  abounds  in  just  such  series  of  facts  as  that  above 
described.  Indeed,  this  is  what  is  meant  by  "  Nature,"  in  the 
larger  significance  of  the  word ;  —  namely,  a  vast  and  intricate 
system  of  beings  that  have  been  during  indefinite  time,  are 
now,  and  will  be,  moving  onward  in  a  course  of  realizing,  one 

1  Taken  from  "  La  Nature,"  Feb.  12th,  1896. 


380  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

after  another,  an  indefinite  multitude  of  ideal  ends.  These 
ends  are  far  too  numerous  and  intricate  for  man  fully  to  know. 
The  one  ultimate  and  supreme  end,  if  only  one  such  there  be, 
the  human  mind  may  easily  enough  be  far  from  able  to  define 
or  even  dimly  to  descry.  The  final  purposes  of  this  system 
of  beings  are  as  intricate  and  even  more  hidden  than  are  its 
efficient  causes,  and  its  net-work  of  so-called  laws.  But 
sooner  will  we  follow  Clifford  in  his  dream-like  theory  of  a 
universally  diffused  "  mind-stuff,"  or  Fechner  in  his  theory 
of  souls  in  plants,  than  believe  that  the  structure,  develop- 
ment, and  relations  of  things  can  be  understood  within  the 
Unity  of  that  process  of  Becoming  which  our  cognitive  ex- 
perience presents,  without  recognizing  the  guidance  of  nature's 
forces  by  immanent  ideas. 

In  a  word,  the  nature  of  knowledge,  as  epistemology  in- 
vestigates its  problem, l  shows  us  how  the  mind,  in  judgment, 
reasoning,  investigation,  and  reflection,  illustrates  by  all  its 
cognitive  activities  its  own  immanent  teleology.  The  knower 
knows  his  own  being  and  doings  as  linking  him  in  with  all 
other  beings,  with  the  objects  known,  in  the  realization  of 
ideal  ends.  So,  on  the  other  hand,  all  progress  in  objective 
knowledge,  in  the  science  of  the  structure  and  relations  of 
things,  as  they  play  their  several  parts  in  the  boundless  and 
unceasing  Process  of  Becoming,  emphasizes  the  trans-subjec- 
tive application  of  the  category  of  final  purpose.  It  is  in  the 
use  of  this  category,  and  in  the  confidence  of  his  ability  to 
understand  Reality  in  terms  of  this  category,  that  man's 
knowledge  constantly  enlarges  its  sphere.  And  were  it  not 
for  certain  objections  designed  to  forestall  the  more  uncertain 
conclusions  from  this  line  of  argument,  when  it  is  carried 
somewhat  too  smoothly  over  from  the  metaphysics  of  physics 
to  the  metaphysics  of  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  religion,  it  is 
hard  to  see  why  some  such  theoretical  position  should  not  be 
universally  accepted. 

1  On  this  point,  see  the  author's  "Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  Chapter  xvi. 


TELEOLOGY  381 

Since  we  must  postpone  the  discussion  of  teleology  within 
the  realm  of  the  higher  ideals  of  conduct,  art,  faith,  and 
worship,  we  might  safely  leave  this  form  of  the  category  of 
the  Idea  to  take  its  place  among  the  others  in  a  metaphysical 
system  that  aims  to  build  itself  upon  a  foundation  of  objec- 
tive facts.  But  a  few  words  to  indicate  how  the  objections 
—  so  often  presented  and  answered  in  the  history  of  teleologi- 
€al  discussion  —  bear  upon  the  positions  assumed  hitherto, 
will  be  found  serviceable  at  this  point. 

The  old-fashioned,  external,  and  non-vital  manner  of  regard- 
ing the  final  purposes  of  nature  was  brought  to  a  close  by  the 
triumphs  of  biological  evolution.  Such  teleology  was  made 
impossible  to  minds  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  facts 
and  spirit  of  modern  science.  But  most  of  the  arguments 
recently  urged  against  the  idea  of  final  purpose  as  applied  to 
physical  realities  are  as  little  calculated  to  remain  influential 
in  their  original  form  as  were  the  conceptions  they  are  in- 
tended to  refute.  This  is  perhaps  especially  true  of  the 
argument  from  alleged  instances  of  useless,  or  defective  and 
even  injurious  organs,  within  the  system  belonging  to  certain 
highly  developed  animal  organisms.  One  not  invaluable 
result  of  much  controversy  has  been  that  both  parties  to  it, 
since  they  have  grown  wiser  as  to  facts,  have  also  grown  less 
sure  of  their  own  immature  interpretation  of  facts.  And  if 
theologians  have  become  more  inclined  to  leave  biologists  and 
physiologists  free  to  tell  what  functions  particular  parts  of 
"  organized  and  self-organizing  beings  "  actually  perform,  the 
latter  have  received  some  well-merited  rebukes  for  their 
earlier  efforts  to  characterize  as  useless,  or  injurious,  certain 
parts  of  various  organisms.  Striking  instances  are  to  be  found 
in  the  history  of  modern  opinion  with  reference  to  the  final 
purpose  of  the  so-called  "  internally  secreting  glands."  Twenty 
years  ago  it  would  indeed  have  required  extraordinary  cour- 
age to  affirm  that  human  life  could  possibly  be  maintained  in 
default  of  the  functions  of  the  stomach,  about  the  use  of  which 


382  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

in  the  economy  of  the  human  body,  no  room  for  doubt  seemed 
possible.  At  that  time,  however,  it  was  not  at  all  "  unscien- 
tific "  to  consign  to  the  class  of  worthless  or  injurious  lumps 
of  tissue,  as  remnants  of  past  stages  of  evolution, the  thyroid, 
para-thyroid,  and  auxiliary  thyroid  glands.  But  it  seems  now 
a  demonstrated  fact  that  the  highly  complex  organism  of  man 
can  continue  its  existence  after  losing  the  services  of  the 
centra]  part  of  its  digestive  system.  On  the  contrary,  recent 
discoveries  show  that,  in  some  manner  which  awaits  de- 
tailed explanation,  these  more  obscure  and  smaller  gland-like 
portions  of  man's  body  are  absolutely  essential  to  the  vital 
physiological  rhythm  of  the  entire  structure.  He  that  loses 
these  despised  bits  of  matter  dies  more  surely  than  he  that 
loses  the  more  imposing  organ.  With  this  discovery  comes 
the  proposal  to  use  thyroid  glands,  excised  from  our  humble 
brethren  the  sheep,  for  the  cure  of  monstrous  diseases  of  the 
same  glands,  and  their  dependent  tissues,  in  man.  Nor  does 
the  medical  expert  think  fit  any  longer  to  sneer  at  this  ex- 
ample of  the  way  in  which  the  lower  animals  are  actually 
made  to  serve  the  final  purposes  of  man,  —  at  least,  until 
perchance  he  hears  of  some  theologian  suggesting  that  God 
gave  thyroid  glands  to  sheep  for  this  express  purpose.  Pos- 
sibly in  time  it  will  be  a  matter  of  equally  well  assured 
knowledge  that  thyroid  glands  in  sheep  have  both  an  "  in- 
ternal "  and  an  "  external  purposiveness  ;  "  and  that  the  two 
final  purposes,  if  not  to  be  defined  in  any  single  sentence,  are 
not  by  any  means  necessarily  contradictory. 

The  pineal  gland  too  has  had  a  not  uhinstructive  history 
during  the  recent  years  of  active  physiological  research. 
After  falling  from  the  high  estate  given  to  it  by  the  Cartesian 
philosophy,  which  found  there  a  fitting  seat  for  the  soul,  it 
seemed  entitled  only  to  the  rating  accorded  to  any  useless 
fold  of  membrane,  —  a  senseless  bit,  left  over  from  those  pro- 
cesses by  which  nature  had  worked  her  way  upward  to  that 
most  wonderful  of  all  her  products,  the  human  brain.  But 


TELEOLOGY  383 

recent  investigations  here  also  tend  to  show  that  this  part  of 
the  organism,  which  bulks  little  and  puts  forth  no  sign  of  any 
purpose  to  serve  definite  wants,  is,  after  all,  a  very  essential 
part  of  the  cerebral  substance.  Meanwhile  the  honors  for 
abject  uselessness,  and  even  mischief-making  functions, 
must  probably  be  awarded  to  the  human  appendix  vermifor- 
mis.  It  would  be  well,  however,  to  reserve  final  judgment 
about  this  piece  of  "  organized  and  self-organizing  "  matter 
until  further  more  definite  information  has  been  obtained. 
Doubtless — to  take  another  example  —  it  may  be  held,  in 
view  of  present  facts,  that  plant-lice  were  made  for  ants  to 
pen  up  and  milk  as  their  cows,  and  for  lady-bugs  to  feed  upon 
entire ;  while  in  this  way  the  ants  themselves  render  services 
to  man  in  a  slight  measure  compensatory  for  the  mischief 
they  otherwise  do,  and  the  lady-bugs  become  his  valuable 
coadjutor  in  the  culture  of  roses  ;  etc.,  etc. 

Jesting  aside,  the  argument  ab  ignorantia  in  general, 
whether  urged  for  or  against  the  principle  of  teleology,  is 
an  increasingly  unsafe  argument  for  the  student  of  Nature. 
Indeed,  such  an  argument  would  seem  to  have  no  relevance  to 
the  conclusion  aimed  at.  For  this  conclusion  is  not  to  the 
effect  that  man  knows,  or  ever  can  know,  all  the  final  purposes 
of  nature,  or  of  any  one  natural  object,  or  even  of  any  portion 
of  any  object.  The  teleolbgical  argument  affirms  the  rather 
that  the  recognition  of  ideal  ends,  of  internal  and  external 
purposiveness  in  all  things,  is  an  integral  part  of  our  fuller 
knowledge  of  them ;  and  that  we  find  things,  in  fact,  answer- 
ing to  our  repeated  and  persistent  attempts  to  make  their 
acquaintance  in  this  way.  No  sooner  is  any  startlingly  new 
natural  product,  or  force,  or  transaction,  or  relation,  discov- 
ered by  the  mind  of  man,  than  he  begins  to  raise  his  question- 
ing after  one  or  more  of  the  final  purposes  involved.  And  the 
answers  he  gets  to  this  questioning  swell  the  bulk  and  improve 
the  quality  of  the  current  stock  of  human  knowledge.  Is  not 
the  world  of  physicists  just  now  interested  in  the  mixed  theo- 


384  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

retical  and  practical  inquiry  :  What  ends,  in  the  world  of 
things,  are  served  by  X-rays ;  or  by  liquefied  hydrogen  ? 
And,  if  the  former  can  be  seen  to  serve  surgical  science,  and 
the  latter  to  improve  the  art  of  producing  explosives,  we  shall 
know  more  about  both.  The  thinker  is  as  truly  convicted  of 
the  attempt  to  reconstruct  an  obsolete  "  carpenter  theory  "  of 
Reality  who  denies  the  immanent  presence  of  ideas  in  their 
known  realizations  of  the  factual  order,  as  is  the  thinker  who 
tries  to  reduce  the  causal  explanation  and  total  significance  of 
the  X-rays,  or  of  liquefied  hydrogen,  to  these  two  limited 
forms  of  human  ideal  ends. 

Substantially  the  same  points  of  view  must  be  maintained 
when  it  is  discovered  that  much  of  the  mechanism  of  nature 
is  defective,  or  injurious,  as  regards  the  realization  of  certain 
human  ideals.  Here  the  ordinary  jests  of  the  opponents  of  the 
principle  of  teleology  become  sorry  enough.  For  example, 
that  oft-repeated  declaration  of  the  German  professor,  who 
declared  the  human  eye  to  be  so  poor  a  piece  of  mechanism 
for  the  purpose  of  perfect  vision  that  he  would  not  accept  its 
like  from  any  maker  of  optical  instruments.  This  particular 
jest  would  be  no  less  sorry  if  it  could  not  easily  be  pointed 
out  that  a  perfect  optical  instrument  would  be  of  compara- 
tively little  practical  use  when  set  in  the  human  forehead. 
For  it  is  just  that  self-adjusting,  that  vital  and  perpetually 
"  self-organizing,"  activity  of  this  organ  which  most  compels 
the  intelligent  recognition  of  its  internal  and  external  pur- 
posiveness.  Nor  is  the  purposiveness  of  this  organ  the  less, 
but  vastly  the  more  impressive  when  we  trace  its  evolution 
from  the  beginning,  and  its  multiform  self-adaptations  to  the 
great  variety  of  organs  and  of  environments  in  which  its  pur- 
poses must  be  attained.  Were  this  not  so,  however,  defective 
organs  may  be  no  less  purposive  than  are  perfect  organs.  In 
order  to  maintain  the  application  of  the  idea  of  final  purpose 
to  all  the  known  productions  and  transactions  of  nature,  it  is 
not  at  all  necessary  that  she  should  be  considered  as  ideally 


TELEOLOGY  385 

exact  in  her  work.  If  she  seems  to  waste  her  tools,  so 
does  she  also  seem  to  waste  her  energy.  And  time,  with 
its  infinite  opportunity  for  repeated  trials  in  the  effort  to 
perfect  her  work,  belongs  without  limit  to  the  opportunity 
of  nature. 

Nowhere  else  is  the  current  logical  inconsistency  with  re- 
gard to  the  teleological  conception  of  nature  more  apparent 
than  in  certain  circles  of  biologists.  As  students  of  a  natural 
science,  they  are  eager  to  throw  the  light  of  ideal  ends  upon 
every  portion  of  natural  mechanism,  and  upon  the  whole 
course  of  nature's  working  from  the  remotest  discernible,  or 
conjectural,  past  down  to  the  present  hour.  Each  individual 
plant  and  animal  is  described  by  them  as  a  beautiful  whole, 
illumined  in  every  part  by  the  light  of  the  ends  served  by 
each  part.  Teeth,  jaws,  intestinal  tract,  muscular  connections 
of  the  limbs  and  the  terminal  claws,  have  mutually  reacting 
functions  as  bound  together  by  the  principle  of  internal  pur- 
posiveness.  But  these  same  organs,  as  related  to  the  pres- 
ervation and  development  of  the  individual  and  of  the  species, 
serve  as  instances  of  external  purposiveness  as  well.  Modern 
evolution  makes  no  complaints  over  waste  of  life,  or  waste  of 
time,  or  suffering  through  fierceness  of  struggle,  or  extinction 
of  many  species  and  exhaustion  of  many  environments,  if 
only  the  great  totality  of  the  World-Process  may  go  on  toward 
its  obscure  and  far-off  goal.  But  let  attention  once  be  di- 
rected from  the  actual  causal  efficiency  of  the  mechanism 
definitively  to  the  ideas  that  set  the  ends  to  the  mechanism, 
and  let  the  suggestion  be  made  that  these  ideas,  too,  must 
somehow  find  their  resting-place  in  Reality,  and  how  quickly 
is  the  attitude  changed  toward  the  teleological  explanation. 
That  Nature  (or,  if  you  please,  God)  should  "  deliberately 
intend,"  should  "  will  in  conformity  to  ideal  ends,"  that  ani- 
mals should  struggle  ceaselessly  together,  should  devour  each 
other,  and  proceed  upward  in  the  biological  scale  only  by 
rough  and  blood-stained  paths,  —  that  Nature  should  behave, 

25 


386  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

indeed,  as  scientific  evolution  claims  that  she  has  behaved,  — 
is  now  made  the  occasion  of  scornful  denial  or  of  flippant  jest. 
But  why  should  this  be,  unless  it  involves  a  recognition  of  the 
potency,  in  the  interpretation  of  the  objective  facts,  which 
belongs  to  man's  aesthetical  and  ethical  ideas  ?  Nature  has 
not  indeed  brought  forth,  from  her  prolific  womb,  her  chil- 
dren in  accordance  with  the  most  refined  ideas  of  the  more 
highly  correct  way.  She  has  not  followed  modern  bedroom 
or  drawing-room  manners  in  her  conduct  of  life.  But  this 
very  criticism  itself  is  a  positive  proof  of  the  inescapable  char- 
acter of  man's  cognition  of  all  things.  He  will  not  be 
thwarted  in  the  general  obligation  to  ascribe  ideal  ends  of 
some  sort  to  natural  processes  and  to  natural  developments ; 
but  he  may  well  enough  practise  caution,  and  confess  igno- 
rance, when  asked  to  declare  what,  in  particular,  these  ends 
are.  Such  a  limitation,  however,  belongs  to  man's  science 
quite  as  much  as  to  his  ethical  and  religious  faith.  Its  lesson 
may  well  be  that  Nature  (or  God  in  nature)  must  be  taken  as 
you  find  her.  The  final  purposes  she  follows  are  to  be  learned 
from  her,  not  dictated  to  her. 

It  is  in  connection  with  the  modern  idea  of  mechanism, 
and  the  extension  of  this  idea  to  a  complete  supremacy  over 
the  whole  realm  of  concrete  existences,  that  some  of  the 
stoutest  objections  have  been  raised  to  a  teleology  which 
advocates  rather  a  supremacy  of  ideas  of  ends.  To  these  ob- 
jections, it  has  been  customary  for  a  certain  class  of  writers 
to  answer  that  the  two  principles  are  not  mutually  exclusive ; 
mechanism  and  mechanical  causation,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
purposiveness  and  ideal  aims  on  the  other  hand,  may  at  least 
coexist,  if  they  do  not  assist  each  other.  Kant,  however, 
claimed  that  the  union  of  these  two  principles  is  not 
rationally  comprehensible.1  The  principle  of  mechanism 
must  be  held  as  the  universal  and  necessary  —  the  a  priori 
—  form  of  all  cognition  of  physical  events  ;  the  principle 

1  See  the  "Kritik  of  Judgment,"  Part  II.,  Appendix,  §  81. 


TELEOLOGY  387 

of  purposiveness  is  only  a  tenable  article  of  a  faith  which 
answers  to  the  need  that  God,  as  the  postulated  moral 
World-Cause,  should  thus  render  an  obvious  support  to  the 
keeping  of  the  moral  law.  We  know  that  things  actually 
exist,  and  events  really  happen,  under  the  principle  of 
mechanism ;  we  are  entitled  to  act  as  though  physical 
things  and  events,  were  parts  of  the  ideal  plan  of  a  right- 
eous and  almighty  Ruler,  in  the  interests  of  the  moral  de- 
velopment of  mankind.  In  all  his  discussion  of  these  two 
principles,  in  their  mutual  relations,  Kant  gives  away  with 
one  hand  far  more  than  he  need,  while  with  the  other  hand 
he  takes  back  far  more  than  he  can  rightfully  claim  or  suc- 
cessfully hold.  We  are  warranted  in  going  far  beyond  the 
Kantian  teleology  with  the  claim  that  the  purposiveness  of 
Nature  —  both  internal  and  external  —  is  a  truth  established 
by  all  man's  growing  knowledge  of  natural  things  and  natural 
events ;  but  we  cannot  rise,  as  the  great  critic  does,  with  one 
gigantic  flap  of  the  wings  of  faith  to  the  serene  heights  of 
a  confidence  that  man's  moral  development  is  the  sole,  su- 
preme aim  of  the  entire  system  of  natural  things  and  natural 
events.  To  reach  these  heights  requires  a  prolonged  critical 
examination  of  the  foundations  and  the  trustworthiness  of 
man's  ideals  —  ethical,  assthetical,  and  religious. 

The  entire  substance,  as  it  were,  of  the  philosophy  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  the  general  philosophy  of  the  Real,  guarantees 
the  very  opposite  of  the  Kantian  position  respecting  mechan- 
ism and  purposiveness.  Without  union  of  the  two  principles, 
whose  union  the  author  of  the  Critique  of  Judgment  declares 
not  to  be  "  rationally  comprehensible/'  no  rational  and  valid 
comprehension  of  the  products  or  the  transactions  of  Nature 
is  possible.  The  conception  of  mechanism  cannot  be  held 
even  in  its  most  meagre  and  outline  form  of  statement,  with- 
out implying  the  conception  of  final  purpose.  And  the  most 
elaborate  and  comprehensive  form  of  the  mechanical  theory 
—  the  modern  scientific  and  all-inclusive  theory  of  evolu- 


388  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

tion  —  does  not  at  all  dispense  with,  but  rather  enhances  and 
applies  in  multiform  ways  the  ideas  of  teleology.1 

By  what  has  just  been  said  we  mean  to  advocate  the  ne- 
cessity of  taking  a  position  which  goes  beyond  that  taken  by 
Lotze  in  the  "  Microcosmus."  The  design  of  this  work,  says 
its  author,2  is  to  show  "  how  absolutely  universal  is  the  extent, 
and  at  the  same  time  how  completely  subordinate  the  signif- 
icance, of  the  mission  which  mechanism  has  to  fulfil  in  the 
structure  of  the  world."  In  Lotze's  opinion  the  mechanism 
which  science  investigates  and  portrays  only  serves  as  the 
means  which  the  Idea  assumes  for  its  own  realization.  What 
we  have  attempted  to  show,  however,  is  this  :  The  principle  of 
mechanism  and  the  principle  of  purposiveness  are,  epistemologi- 
cally  considered,  the  same  essential  forms  of  the  Self 's  function- 
ing in  cognition  ;  and  they  are  also  both,  ontologically  considered, 
essentially  the  same  forms  of  the  world's  Self -like  Being  and 
Life.  "  Mechanism  "  means  nothing  less  than  this :  a  system 
of  individual  existences  which  act  and  react  upon  one  another, 
according  to  forms,  and  in  obedience  to  laws,  that  are  neces- 
sary to  the  attainment  of  ideal  ends.  No  such  conception  as 
a  "  mechanism  of  nature,"  or  a  "  structure  of  the  world," 
is  tenable  without  the  implicate  of  purposiveness.  A  critical 
metaphysics  has,  therefore,  no  need  to  effect  a  union,  or 
apologetically  to  harmonize  a  seeming  conflict,  between  these 
two  principles.  The  two  are  in  union,  essentially  one  and  the 
same,  both  as  noetical  and  as  ontological  principles.  Both 
affirm  one  and  the  same  great  truth  ;  man  knows  Reality 
only  —  but  knows  It  indubitably  —  as  a  system  of  causally 
connected  beings  and  transactions  conforming  to  the  ends 
set  by  "  immanent  ideas. "  Ideas  are  essential  explanatory 
principles  of  all  that  is  real ;  no  real  being  exists,  or  actual 
transaction  occurs,  as  cognizable  or  conceivable  by  man, 
without  the  causal  influence  of  ideas.  To  talk  of  conflict  here 
is  foolishness ;  to  attempt  reconciliation,  there  is  no  need. 

1  Comp.  Wundt,  "System  der  Philosophie,  " p.  326  f. 

2  Introduction,  near  its  close. 


TELEOLOGY  389 

Nothing  in  all  the  development  of  the  Kantian  philosophy 
is  more  interesting  than  are  those  concluding  portions *  of  the 
Critique  of  Judgment  in  which  this  masterful  critic  discusses 
the  "  Methodology  of  the  Teleological  Judgment."  Here  the 
real  Kant  comes  to  the  fore,  —  the  man  of  intense  and 
profound  moral  convictions  and  of  deep  and  sincere  religious 
nature.  At  the  end  of  its  long,  reiterative  discussion  of  the 
principles  of  all  scientific  and  philosophical  knowledge,  criti- 
cism essays  the  world-wide,  heaven-high,  and  inimitably  deep 
inquiry  after  the  "  ultimate  purpose  of  nature  as  a  teleo- 
logical  system."  2  At  once  the  founder  of  the  modern  agnostic 
stronghold  leaves  the  advantages  of  the  position  in  which  he 
has  intrenched  himself;  on  the  wings  of  moral  faith  he 
sgars  away  beyond  all  the  confines  of  time,  of  space,  and  of  the 
sensuously  and  cognizably  real.  No  religious  fanatic  ever 
exhibited  more  than  does  Kant,  at  this  point,  of  that  splendid 
courage  with  which  certain  minds  answer  the  appeal  to  turn 
from  the  known  actual  to  the  realm  of  unknown  and  un- 
knowable ideals.  With  an  authority  patterned  after  the  form 
of  mathematical  and  physical  a  priori  demonstrations,  the 
critic  assures  us  that  man  must  find  in  himself  the  ultimate 
purpose  of  nature,  and  that  his  moral  culture  alone  can  be  this 
ultimate  purpose. 

The  positions  taken  by  Kant  in  the  passage  just  quoted 
cannot  be  argued  to  a  satisfactory  conclusion  on  grounds  of 
a  general  metaphysical  system.  They  require,  as  has  been 
said  already,  all  of  the  light  which  can  be  shed  upon  them 
from  studies  in  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  the  philosophy  of 
religion ;  and  where  Kant  becomes  most  ready  to  transcend 
the  limits  of  man's  knowledge,  we  may  well  enough  begin  to 
temper  our  confidence  in  the  conclusions  of  our  cognitive 
powers.  For  neither  of  the  three  theoretical  statements 
which  his  positions  assume  can  be  made  either  a  matter  of 

1  Marked,  indeed,  as  an  Appendix  in  the  second  edition. 

2  Part  II.,  Appendix,  §  83. 


390  A  THEORY  OF  EEALITY 

objective  knowledge  or  a  matter  of  incontestable  moral  and 
religious  faith. 

It  is  indeed  given  to  man  to  know  the  world  of  concrete 
real  beings  and  of  actual  events  as  falling  under  the  principle 
of  final  purpose.  This  world  is  known  to  be  a  teleological 
system,  a  construction  controlled  by  immanent  ends.  But 
it  is  not  given  to  man  to  "  know  "  what  is  the  one  ultimate 
end  of  the  world ;  or  whether  the  world's  cause  has  only  one 
such  end  ;  much  less,  whether  this  one  ultimate  purpose  of 
Nature  —  of  the  world's  system  and  course  of  things  and  of 
selves  —  is  the  realization  of  man's  moral  ideal,  as  Kant  con- 
ceived of  it.  With  regard  to  each  of  these  three  teleological 
problems,  —  although  they  are  all  essential  factors  in  the  one 
problem  of  teleology,  as  this  all-inclusive  problem  is  viewed 
in  the  Critique  of  Judgment,  —  only  the  better  hope  or  the 
more  reasonable  opinion  is,  at  best,  attainable.  For  neither 
of  the  three  can  rightly  claim  the  dignity  of  a  postulate  of 
moral  reason ;  nor  is  either  of  them  essentially  connected 
with  any  so-called  "  ethico-teleological "  proof  for  the  Being 
of  God. 

First,  —  and  strictly  speaking,  —  an  "  ultimate  "  purpose  of 
the  world's  being  and  course,  as  such,  may  well  seem  some- 
thing unattainable  and  even  inconceivable.  The  End  to  be 
attained  cannot  be  regarded  as  the  complete  cessation  of  the 
process  of  its  own  attainment.  The  ultimate  purpose  of 
Nature  cannot  be  a  statical  condition.  The  very  idea  of  tele- 
ology is  an  incitement  to  strive  on  and  live  on ;  the  idea  itself 
perishes  in  its  own  completed  realization.  To  be  sure,  indi- 
vidual men  get  tired  and  come  to  consider  Nirvana  as  the 
ultimate  ideal ;  or  they  get  pessimistic,  and  regard  the  condi- 
tion, when  the  world  shall  be  a  burned-out  coal,  as  some- 
thing devoutly  to  be  wished.  But  the  World  itself  is  not 
tired  ;  and  the  strictly  "  ultimate  "  purpose  is  always  beyond 
where  man's  hope  and  faith  —  not  to  say,  man's  knowledge  — 
can  go. 


TELEOLOGY  391 

Moreover,  second,  the  most  ultimate  purpose  which  we  can 
conceive  is  not  one  purpose  ;  it  is  not  an  ideal  end  that  can  be 
brought  under  any  strict  unity  of  conception.  Some  sort  of  a 
Unity,  the  final  purpose  of  the  World's  course  undoubtedly  must 
be.  But  the  higher  the  sort  of  unity  is,  the  more  complex  and 
inclusive  is  it  of  every  conceivable  form  of  good ;  —  and  of 
yet  more  beyond.  Who  shall  define  to  knowledge,  or  describe 
to  faith  and  hope  the  single,  the  alone  ideal  end  which  it  shall 
seem  a  worthy  end  of  all  the  world's  Force  to  realize  through 
the  infinite  Life  of  the  world's  time  ?  A  certain  singleness 
of  aim  is  necessary  for  the  physical  and  mental  resources  of 
finite  mortals.  Yet  there  is  no  real  thing  so  mean,  so  limited 
in  resources,  so  meagre  in  time,  and  so  single-handed  in  ser- 
vice as  not  to  have  many  ends  to  attain.  The  only  worthy 
aim  which  the  most  exalted  human  intelligence  can  set  for 
itself  is  to  play  its  assigned  part  well  everywhere  in  the  in- 
finitely varied  and  ever  changing  system  of  selves  and  things. 
This  is  the  true  service  of  Self,  of  the  World,  and  of  God ; 
but  its  unity  is  best  expressed  in  an  indefinite  variety  of  actual 
transactions,  and  of  diversified  forms  of  being. 

Nor,  finally,  can  man  attain  the  assurance  of  faith  that  his 
own  moral  culture  forms  the  one  ultimate  purpose  served 
by  the  Nature  of  which  he  is,  or  esteems  himself  to  be,  the 
crowning  product.  No  word  of  ours  shall  ever  depreciate  or 
minimize  the  moral  Ideal.  Without  its  light  to  shed  upon 
the  course  of  physical  things,  down  to  their  lowest  depths 
and  into  their  minutest  details,  this  course  is  darker  than  it 
otherwise  need  be.  But  not  even  the  most  exalted  religious 
faith  which  raises  man  to  the  rank  of  a  child  of  God,  and 
grasps,  as  its  supreme  ideal,  the  redemption  of  the  race, 
justifies  exactly  the  confidence  which  Kant  assigns  to  this 
postulate  of  reflective  teleological  judgment.  Indeed,  the 
conception  of  "  moral  culture  "  may  be  so  pressed  as  to  divide 
human  nature  against  itself,  separate  human  nature  from 
other  nature,  and  even  take  man  out  of  sympathy  with  the 


392  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

well-being  of  God.  For  man  is  not  all  ethical,  in  the  Kan- 
tian conception  of  "  the  ethical ; "  neither  is  the  ethical  so 
strictly  set  apart  from  the  natural  as  that  the  one  can  dis- 
pense with  the  truths  of  the  other.  Nor,  finally,  is  God  an 
unattainable  Ding-an-Sich  to  knowledge,  but  a  necessary  pos- 
tulate of  moral  realities  ;  and  yet  altogether  without  a  warm 
and  vital  co-conscious  indwelling  in  his  own  children. 

The  conclusions  of  our  discussion  of  the  teleological  prin- 
ciple, so  far  as  they  bear  in  a  preliminary  way  upon  the  gene- 
ral problem  under  investigation,  may  be  briefly  stated.  They 
advance  one  stage  further  the  final  conclusion  that  the  world 
of  things  and  of  selves  is  an  Ideal  Reality,  constituted  after 
the  analogy  of  the  self-known  Self ;  for  it  has  been  shown  that 
the  idea  of  final  purpose  is  known  as  not  belonging  merely 
to  the  "  Appearance  "  of  the  world,  but  as  the  universal  and 
essential  characteristic  of  its  "  Reality."  This  conclusion  is, 
indeed,  only  a  further  extension  of  that  knowledge  of  what 
all  things  and  all  selves  actually  are,  which  includes  also  the 
conceptions  of  form  and  of  law.  Knowledge,  both  of  selves 
and  of  things  is  knowledge'  of  their  forms  and  of  the  laws 
which  they  obey.  Equally  true  is  it  that  knowledge  of  all 
real  beings  is  an  acquaintance  with  the  reciprocally  dependent 
functions  of  their  elements,  factors,  or  parts,  of  the  adapta- 
tions they  display,  the  adjustments  they  perfect,  and  the 
courses  of  mutually  assisting  or  hindering  development 
through  which  they  pass.  But  this  is  nothing  else  than  the 
teleological  knowledge  of  Reality. 

Translated  from  the  figures  of  speech  which  ordinary  and 
scientific  knowledge  are  fully  justified  in  employing,  all  such 
terms  as  "  form,"  "  law,"  "  function,"  "  specific  variation," 
"effects  of  environment,"  etc.,  testify  to  the  same  ultimate 
truth  of  metaphysics.  The  World  is  known  ~by  man  as  a  sys- 
tem of  beings,  mutually  interacting  in  a  process  of  becoming  for 
the  progressive  realization  of  ideal  ends.  If,  then,  we  represent 
the  infinity  of  the  World's  Being  at  any  moment  of  its  exist- 


TELEOLOGY  393 

ence  by  the  proper  symbol  (  oo),  and  its  eternal  Life  and  pro- 
cess of  Becoming  by  a  series  of  such  symbols  (  oo1?  oo2,  oo8  .  .  . 
oon),the  coefficients  attached  to  these  symbols  may  then  be 
arranged  so  as,  in  their  relations  to  each  other,  to  symbolize 
the  "final  purpose"  of  the  World.  Its  one  ultimate  final 
purpose,  if  such  there  be,  remains  the  insoluble  problem  indi- 
cated by  the  coefficient  of  an  irreducible  X. 

If,  however,  by  increasing  our  knowledge  of  the  relations 
of  the  coefficients  in  the  World's  course,  so  far  as  that 
course  can  become  known  to  us,  we  arrive  at  a  reasonable 
conjecture  as  to  the  meaning  and  value  of  this  X,  we  are 
entitled  to  add  also  this  conjectured  meaning  and  value  ta 
our  metaphysical  system.  Such  a  value  to  the  X  is  afforded 
by  the  hope  and  the  faith  attained  through  the  thoughtful 
study  of  the  philosophy  of  the  Ideal  in  the  forms  of  conduct, 
art,  and  religion.  Thus  our  Theory  of  Reality  embraces  the 
Ideas  which  the  Will  of  the  Absolute  is  setting  into  the 
World's  actual  historical  development.  That  this  Will  is 
guided  by  ideas  of  ends  to  be  gained  in  every  form,  law, 
and  relation  that  are  served  by  the  objects  of  man's  experi- 
ence is  a  truth  belonging  to  all  man's  objective  knowledge  of 
the  World.  This  World  is,  fundamentally  considered,  known 
to  man  as  a  Will  guided  by  immanent  ideas ;  and  among 
these  guiding  ideas  are  the  ideal  ends,  already  actually 
secured,  and  to  be  secured,  by  the  action  of  this  Will. 


CHAPTER  XY 

SPHERES  OF  REALITY 

THE  detailed  critical  analysis  which  is  necessary  to  found 
upon  the  cognitive  experience  of  men  a  defensible  Theory  of 
Reality  has  heen  substantially  finished.  In  the  attempt  to 
frame  such  a  theory  we  began  under  the  impulse  of  that 
craving  to  which  Matthew  Arnold  so  aptly  referred :  "  We 
want  first  to  know  what  Being  is."  This  is  a  want,  however, 
which  can  never  be  satisfied  either  wholly  without,  or  solely 
with,  regard  to  what  all  men  know  by  the  senses  and  by  self- 
consciousness,  or  to  what  a  few  favored  individuals  know  by 
aid  of  the  advances  of  the  particular  sciences.  Metaphysics, 
on  the  one  hand,  in  order  to  have  truths  about  realities  at  the 
bases  of  its  structure,  must  build  on  the  facts  and  formulas 
of  our  common  experience.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  in  order 
to  apprehend  aright  and  to  fulfil  its  mission,  metaphysics, 
after  subjecting  its  varied  materials  to  critical  inspection, 
must  carry  its  structure  upward  toward  that  one  Truth  of 
Reality  which  unites  all  these  subordinate  truths  in  itself. 
Thus  the  perfection  of  metaphysical  system  requires  that 
speculative  and  reflective  synthesis  should  follow  critical 
analysis. 

In  accordance  with  our  conception  of  correct  method,  reflec- 
tive analysis  has  been  employed  in  the  effort  to  show  what, 
as  to  the  actual  nature  of  particular  beings,  is  implied  in  the 
very  terms  under  which  they  are  always,  and  necessarily, 
known  by  man.  It  is  indispensable  here  only  briefly  to  sum- 
marize the  results  of  this  detailed  analysis.  Every  individual, 


SPHERES   OF   REALITY  395 

concrete  reality  (whether  a  so-called  Self  or  a  so-called  Thing) 
has  been  seen  to  unite  in  its  being,  as  a  necessary  precon- 
dition of  its  really  being  at  all,  every  one  of  the  categories. 
Concrete  realities  are  particular  combinations  of  the  cate- 
gories. Thus, "  being  in  reality  "  is  never  a  simple  and  easily 
intelligible  affair;  the  rather  is  it  always  an  affair  which 
requires,  for  its  simplest  apprehension,  all  the  faculties  of 
the  developed  mind,  and  which,  for  its  perfect  comprehension, 
far  surpasses  the  limits  of  the  most  expanded  mental  devel- 
opment. But  our  experience  is  no  warrant  for  the  agnostic 
conclusion,  that  man  knows  not  what  it  is  really  to  be  ;  it  is 
rather  token  of  the  inexhaustible  wealth  of  the  content  of 
Reality.  It  is  also  a  sign  that  the  completed,  or  perfected, 
knowledge  of  any  concrete  reality  would  seem  to  involve  the 
essential  significance  of  all  that  is  real. 

The  moment,  however,  an  attempt  is  made  to  translate 
into  their  ultimate  significance  those  terms  which  man  is 
compelled  to  employ  in  the  description  of  what  he  knows  real 
things  to  be,  the  virtual  character  of  all  human  knowledge 
becomes  obvious.  The  knower  has  somehow  attributed  to 
things,  regarded  as  trans-subjective  and  independent  of  his 
knowledge,  those  qualifications  which  he  knows  himself  to 
have  and  to  exercise  in  his  more  immediate  and  mutually 
dependent  relations  with  things.  That  is  to  say,  all  man's 
knowledge  of  what  things  really  and,  as  it  were,  "in-them- 
selves  "  are,  is  gained  on  the  basis  of  his  right  to  judge  that 
the  real  being  of  things  is  essentially  similar  to  his  own. 

Our  previous  analysis  of  the  categories  has  verified  the 
foregoing  postulate  in  all  its  essential  particulars.  In  know- 
ing himself  as  really  being,  and  actually  doing,  man  comes  to 
know  the  reality  of  the  being  and  the  actuality  of  the  trans- 
actions of  things.  He,  the  knower,  is  conscious  of  self- 
activity,  which  is  inhibited  by  a  "  that-which,"  not  to  be 
identified  with  the  Self.  This  "other,"  this  "non-self"  is 
accordingly  known  as  self-active,  and  yet  as  always  inhibited 


396  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

by  beings  that  cannot  be  identified  with  itself.  Man  is  also 
conscious  of  actively  relating  himself,  and  of  becoming  pas- 
sively related,  either  without  or  in  spite  of  his  will,  to  all 
other  things.  These  other  things,  too,  are  known  as  being  in 
real  relations  after  the  analogy  of  the  observing,  judging,  and 
thinking  Self.  Man  is  conscious  of  force  as  followed  by 
changes  in  himself  and  in  other  beings,  in  conformity  with 
ideal  ends.  These  other  beings,  too,  are  therefore  known  as 
employing  their  forces,  within  themselves  and  upon  one 
another,  so  as  to  change  themselves  and  to  induce  in  one 
another  changes  that  conform  to  established  types,  or  laws, 
or  functions,  or  mutual  services,  —  that  is,  to  ideal  ends. 
Man  measures  and  enumerates  the  different  ideally  separable 
"  moments  "  in  the  one  stream  of  his  consciousness ;  he  thus 
knows  his  object-things  as  actually  having  quantity  and 
number  belonging  to  them.  He  then  employs  them  to  judge 
and  to  estimate  one  another.  He  is  conscious  of  the  flow  of 
his  own  life  in  the  so-called  stream  of  time ;  but  this  flow  is 
objectively  determined ;  and  he,  therefore,  knows  the  life  of 
things  as  occuring  and  lasting  in  the  same  stream  of  time. 
And  although  the  essential  character  of  that  space  in  which 
all  thing-like  beings  have  their  existence  and  their  changes 
seems,  of  all  the  foreign  conditions  of  things,  most  foreign 
to  man's  own  self-hood,  this  character  also  proves,  after  all, 
the  same  important  truth.  For  the  knower  knows  himself  as 
entering  into  actual  relations  with  other  beings  —  even  with 
other  selves — only  under  the  formal  conditions  of  space. 

When,  therefore,  a  critical  analysis  has  laid  bare  the  signi- 
ficance of  the  categories,  for  all  men's  knowledge  of  reality,  we 
see  that  things  are  not  essentially  foreign  to  the  self.  For 
we  see  that  they  join  with  the  self  in  furnishing  the  manifold 
principles  of  differentiation  which  are  needed  for  the  mani- 
festation of  the  Idea  in  a  system  of  inter-related  selves  and 
things.  And  the  deepest  significance  of  this  common  use  of 
the  categories,  in  their  joint  application  to  selves  and  to  things, 


SPHERES  OF   REALITY  397 

becomes  apparent  only  when  the  truth  is  recognized,  that  the 
one  fundamental  distinction  which  the  act  of  knowledge  must 
maintain  is  the  distinction  between  the  knower  and  his 
"  other  "  —  the  object  known. 

It  is,  then,  in  a  profound  and  comprehensive  conception  of 
Selfhood,  its  nature  and  its  validity,  that  metaphysical  system 
must  find  the  means  for  a  synthesis  which  shall  be  faithful  to 
all  the  facts  and  truths  of  its  critical  analysis.  This  is  a 
conclusion  which  has  been  gradually  gathering  and  strength- 
ening in  our  minds  during  the  long  course  of  previous  epis- 
temological  and  ontological  discussion.  Especially  insistent 
has  this  conclusion  seemed  during  the  later  stages  of  the 
discussion.  For  these  have  made  it  apparent  that  all  the 
attributions  of  form  and  law,  and  final  purpose,  which  both 
the  ordinary  and  the  scientific  knowledge  of  man  finds  it 
necessary  to  ascribe  to  things,  are  essentially  ideal.  They  are 
ways  of  the  self-recognized  behavior  of  man  in  all  his  action 
and  development,  amidst  the  environment  of  natural  objects. 
They  are  necessarily  attributed  to  these  objects,  and  to  Nature 
at  large,  as  defining  the  character  of  the  reality  in  which  she 
includes  them  all.  But  this  means  that  all  natural  objects 
are  known  to  man  only  in  terms  of  his  own  selfhood ; 
and  that  Nature  is  known  as  Will  which  is  progressively 
realizing  its  own  immanent  ideas.  To  change  the  phrase, 
without  intending  at  this  point  to  change  the  doctrine  :  The 
World  of  beings,  both  selves  and  things,  is  known  as  having 
its  essential  reality  in  being  an  "  Absolute  Self." 

The  phrase  just  employed  —  "  Absolute  Self  "  —  has  already 
several  times  been  referred  to,  in  the  analytical  criti- 
cism of  the  categories.  The  conception  answering  to  the 
phrase  has,  indeed,  thus  far  been  left  in  a  vague  and  unsatis- 
factory form.  The  moment  one  proposes  to  subject  it  to  the 
tests  of  reflective  criticism,  one  is  made  aware  of  an  attempt 
to  cross  what  not  a  few  will  consider  to  be  the  limits  of  hu- 
man knowledge  and  even  of  legitimate  speculative  endeavor. 


398 


A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 


In  our  judgment,  too,  it  is  not  permissible,  and  it  is,  as  a  rule, 
the  opposite  of  truly  serviceable,  to  claim  such  a  degree  of 
objective  certainty  for  this  conception  as  to  identify  it  with,  the 
sum-total  of  all  Reality.  That  I  immediately  know  the  entire 
system  of  all  known  and  conceivable  beings  in  terms  of  an 
"  Absolute  Self  "  is  not  a  conclusion  which  follows  in  a  strictly 
logical  way  from  what  has  been  accomplished  by  the  pre- 
vious analysis.  Yet  some  such  synthesis  as  this  may  be  made 
valid  by  this  analysis;  and  the  synthesis  may  be  so  con- 
nected with  the  analysis  as  to  afford  a  Theory  of  Reality  that 
shall  repose  on  foundations  firmly  laid  in  the  sum-total  of 
man's  cognitive  experience. 

To  further  the  interests  of  successful  speculation,  two 
lines  of  effort  need  to  be  followed  in  the  interests  of  improv- 
ing the  conception  just  introduced.  The  first  of  these  is  the 
effort  to  perfect  the  conception  itself.  Its  content  needs  to 
be  made  more  clear  and  self-consistent,  and  its  value  must  be 
raised  to  higher  potencies  and  grander  measures  of  extension. 
For  the  question  whether  the  noun  and  the  adjective  here 
joined  together  do  not  refuse  all  vital  union  —  whether  to 
speak  of  an  "  Absolute  Self  "  be  not  a  contradiction  in  terms 
—  is  not  altogether  a  vain  question.  Especially  is  it  neces- 
sary if  the  conception  of  selfhood  is  to  be  extended  so  as 
to  cover  all  the  objects  of  man's  knowledge,  in  their  mutual 
relations  and  in  their  extension  over  all  times  and  spaces, 
that  this  conception  shall  itself  be  worthily  conceived. 

But,  second,  it  must  be  our  effort  to  place  this  conception 
of  an  Absolute  Self,  as  summing  up  all  man  can  know,  or 
think,  that  is  highest  and  best  about  the  essential  Being  of 
the  world-system,  in  satisfactory  theoretical  and  practical 
relations  with  the  facts  it  is  intended  to  explain.  The  parti- 
cular selves  and  particular  things  man  knows  —  imperfectly, 
to  be  sure,  but  with  a  continuous  increase  in  the  depth, 
breadth,  and  certainty  of  cognition  —  belong  together  in  the 
great  system  of  which  they  are  all  members  or  parts.  We 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  399 

have  found  ourselves  constantly  approximating  the  concep- 
tion of  an  Absolute  Self,  as  the  endeavor  has  gone  on  to 
understand  the  ultimate  significance  of  all  these  particular 
cognitions,  and  the  ultimate  nature  of  that  reality  to  the  unity 
of  whose  being  the  particulars  belong.  But  such  progress 
only  leads  the  mind  nearer  to  that  philosophical  problem 
which,  says  Lotze,1  "  we  may  therefore  consider  as  the  final 
problem  of  Ontology  —  a  problem  not  yet  satisfactorily  solved 
-  this  inquiry  after  the  connection  between  the  necessary 
Unity  and  the  alike  necessary  manifoldness  of  the  Existent." 
Or,  as  it  seems  to  us  better  to  express  the  problem:  What 
are  the  relations  in  reality  between  all  the  particular  beings, 
which  are  known  under  the  formal  conditions  of  space  and 
time,  and  that  Absolute  Self  whose  Being  must  be  so  con- 
ceived of  as  to  offer  the  explanatory  principle  of  all  that  they 
are,  and  do  ?  In  the  attempt  to  solve  this  problem,  different 
thinkers  lay  emphasis  on  ideas  of  "  identity,"  or  "  manifesta- 
tion," or  "  realization,"  or  "  evolution,"  or  "  creation,"  etc. 

To  frame  a  consistent  and  worthy  conception  which  shall 
synthesize  all^the  legitimate  conclusions  of  metaphysical  analy- 
sis, undoubtedly  requires  assistance  from  reflective  thinking 
upon  human  ideals.  The  highest  and  worthiest  selfhood 
with  which  man  has  acquaintance  is  the  Self  that  is  self-active 
in  pursuit  of  the  ideals  of  knowledge,  of  conduct,  of  art,  and  of 
religion.  This  is  our  real  being,  as  known  to  us  to  be  a  spirit- 
ual life.  Here,  in  the  actual  experience  of  the  self,  the 
"  most  real  reality  "  —  if  such  an  expression  may  be  pardoned 
—  and  the  highest  ideality  are  united.  Therefore  the  work 
of  philosophy  in  perfecting  the  conception  of  an  Absolute 
Self,  if  this  work  be  possible  at  all,  certainly  cannot  be 
accomplished  without  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  the  philosophy 
of  religion.  But  since  these  branches  of  philosophy  deal 
rather  with  man's  ideals  than  with  the  concrete  actualities 
known  to  man,  —  with  actual  selves  and  actual  things, — 

1  In  his  "  Outlines  of  Encyclopaedia  of  Philosophy/'  close  of  §  14. 


400  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

they  require  and  permit  larger  influxes  of  the  emotional  and 
practical  life  into  their  conclusions.  It  is  customary  to  speak 
of  their  invisible  and  intangible  entities  as  objects  of  faith, 
while  the  invisible  and  intangible  entities  of  physics,  chemis- 
try, and  biology  are  called  objects  of  science,  of  assured  and 
verifiable  knowledge. 

It  is  not  the  intention  of  the  present  investigation  to  dispute 
or  invalidate  some  such  distinction  as  that  to  which  reference 
has  just  been  made.  But  if  the  distinction  is  taken  so  as  to 
create  a  schism  between  faith  and  knowledge,  between  the 
entities  that  are  ideals  and  the  entities  that  have  been  shown 
to  implicate  the  immanence  of  ideas,  between  the  philosophy  of 
man's  ethical,  aesthetical,  and  religious  nature,  and  the  philoso- 
phy of  his  scientific  and  cognitive  nature,  then  all  our  previous 
investigation  offers  a  network  of  insuperable  objections.  For 
the  foundations  of  a  system  of  metaphysics  reach  down  to  the 
ultimate  and  universal  facts  of  man's  cognitive  experience  ;  and 
in  examining  these  facts  we  are  made  to  know  that  man  is  an 
ideal  and  spiritual  being,  and  that  this  ideal  and  spiritual 
being  essentially  modifies  his  knowledge  of  every  form  and 
semblance  of  reality.  As  a  Spirit,  or  Mind,  man  knows  the 
reality  of  himself  and  of  all  other  beings. 

It  remains,  then,  to  carry  the  structure  already  begun  up 
to  the  place  where  the  more  definitive  forms  of  human  ideals  — 
ideals  of  the  ethical,  artistic,  and  religious  Self  —  can  employ 
these  foundations  for  their  peculiar  work  of  extending  the 
superstructure.  For  the  completed  work  of  metaphysical 
synthesis,  it  was  necessary  first  to  consider  what  is  the  known 
nature  of  a  self,  as  this  being  actually  exists  and  knows  itself 
to  be,  and  to  be  related  to  its  environment  of  things.  If  all 
existences  have  a  self-like  nature,  whether  as  known  under 
the  forms  of  the  most  ordinary  or  of  the  most  strictly  scientific 
cognition,  then  the  more  profound  and  well  certified  our 
knowledge  of  the  self  becomes,  the  more  shall  we  know  of  the 
true  and  ultimate  nature  of  all  reality. 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  401 

But  the  unity  which  this  conception  imparts  to  all  the 
objects  of  knowlege  must  not  be  conceived  of  in  a  way  that  is 
incompatible  with  the  real  variety  of  these  objects.  All  things 
and  all  selves  are  known  as  somehow  related  —  manifestation, 
emanation,  revelation,  dependent  creation  —  to  an  Absolute 
Self.  All  things  are  known  only  so  far  as  they  are  conceived 
of,  or  envisaged,  in  terms  of  the  selfhood  of  man.  Yet  selves 
and  things  must  not  be  identified,  either  in  general  or  in  par- 
ticular; neither  must  the  individual  existences  lose  their 
reality  by  being  theoretically  merged  in  the  Unity  of  the 
World,  of  which  they  are  a  part.  In  order,  then,  to  reap  the 
legitimate  fruits  of  analysis,  and  not  the  rather  to  destroy  or 
surrender  them  all,  by  the  act  of  synthesis,  the  reality  of 
spheres  of  being  must  be  maintained.  I  am  ;  you  are  ;  things 
are ;  and  the  Absolute,  that  somehow  embraces  me,  and  you, 
and  all  things  in  his  Being,  is.  To  all,  the  conception  of  self- 
hood somehow  applies.  It  is  the  grasping  on  to  more  or  less 
of  selfhood  which  relegates  each  particular  being  to  its 
appropriate  sphere  of  reality.  It  is  the  absoluteness  of  the 
Divine  Selfhood,  which  makes  its  Unity  of  Reality  include  the 
particular  realities  of  all  finite  things  and  finite  selves.  The 
different  spheres  of  reality  as  known  by  man  are  distinguished 
by  the  amounts  of  essential  selfhood  which  they  possess. 

The  line  of  argument  leading  to  the  supreme  synthesis  of 
metaphysics,  the  philosophy  of  the  real,  may  therefore  be 
briefly  described  as  follows.  In  the  individual  man,  and  in  the 
human  race,  the  growth  of  the  most  immediate  and  assured 
knowledge  reveals  what  it  is  really  to  be,  after  the  type  of  the 
self-conscious  knower  and  doer,  in  all  the  varying  relations  of 
his-  changing  existence  toward  his  objects — whether  other 
selves  or  things.  Reality  is  envisaged  as  a  commerce  between 
the  self  and  the  not-self,  in  which  the  former  knows  that  it  is 
and  what  it  is,  and  knows  that  the  latter  is,  and  is  not  itself. 
But  what  the  not-self  really  is,  becomes  known  only  as  it  is 
apprehended  after  the  analogy  of  the  self.  All  other  men  are 

26 


402  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

known  to  me  as  not-my-self,  but  as  self-like  things  —  com- 
pletely self-like,  so  far  as  all  the  important  characteristics  of 
the  actual  being  of  a  self  are  concerned.  Still  other  things  — 
animals  and  plants,  for  example  —  are  known  as  less  com- 
pletely self-like ;  yet  they,  too,  so  far  as  known  at  all,  are 
known  only  as  their  existence  is  apprehended,  or  conceived 
of,  after  the  analogy  of  the  self.  And  in  the  last  analysis, 
the  same  procedure  turns  out  to  be  verifiable  in  the  case  of 
those  things  that  are  most  unlike  the  willing,  feeling,  thinking 
Self.  Mere  things,  "  brute  inanimate  matter  "  —  whatever 
one  may  call  those  forms  of  existence  which  give  less  sure 
token  of  being,  in  reality,  of  the  same  kinship  with  ourselves 

—  are  known  only  on  essentially  similar  terms.     They  are 
indeed   the  least   obviously  and  fully  self-like  of   all  known 
forms  of  existence.     But  they,  too,  so  far  as  known,  or  even 
as  at  all  conceivable,  are  somewhat  self-like  things.     All  the 
qualifications  they  are  known  to  show,  or  are  conjectured  to 
possess,  appear   in   reality,  essentially  the    same  as   certain 
fundamental  qualifications  of  the  knowing  and  willing  self. 

No  matter  how  much  physical  science  may  strive  to  regard 
physical  beings  and  events  merely  as  "  in-themselves  "  existing, 
all  the  terms  it  employs  still  recognize  the  same  metaphysical 
truth.  Of  this  truth  there  are  both  a  negative  and  a  positive 
side.  The  former  recognizes  the  fact  that  we  do  not  know 
some  of  our  own  forms  of  being  and  behavior  to  belong,  in 
reality,  to  things ;  but  the  latter  assures  us  that  all  the  forms 
of  being,  and  behavior  which  we  do  know  things  to  possess  are 
essentially  the  same  as  our  own.  The  former  and  negative 
position  is  largely  taken  in  our  ignorance.  Man  —  so  to  say 

—  cannot  get  into  interior  relations  with  things ;  he  cannot 
hold  with  them  the  same  satisfying  and  informing  intercourse 
which  is  possible  between  selves.     We  may  even  speak,  with 
that  sweet  saint  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  our  "  dear  brethren, 
the  birds."     But  the  kinship  of  being  which  is  between  souls 
and  stars  or  stones  does  not,  on  the  surface  at  least,  warrant 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  403 

our  going  so  far  as  to  address  them  in  fraternal  terms.  Yet 
the  more  profound  acquaintance  which  reflection  upon  the 
nature  of  knowledge  and  the  nature  of  existence  brings,  makes 
even  more  emphatic  the  positive  and  informing  side  of  man's 
cognitive  experience  with  the  system  of  physical  beings  and 
physical  events.  They  really  are  for  man,  only  so  far  as  they 
show  to  him  the  evident  tokens  of  the  will  and  the  mind  that 
is  in  them.  It  is  their  actual  construction  after  the  pattern 
of  his  own  self -hood,  their  substantiality  as  centres  of  an 
activity  that  functions  in  obedience  to  immanent  ideas,  which 
makes  them  knowable,  or  conceivable,  by  the  human  mind. 

Combining  these  two  aspects  of  the  same  truth  —  the  nega- 
tive and  the  positive,  the  view  ab  ignorantia  and  the  view 
which  embraces  all  that  is  called  scientia  —  we  arrive  at  a 
knowledge  of  the  completed  whole.  Things  are  known  as 
imperfect  and  inferior  selves.  They  have  a  smaller  share  in 
reality  than  man  possesses.  Among  the  ranks,  or  spheres,  of 
Being,  they  lie  lower  down,  as  it  were.  This  relative  imper- 
fection and  inferiority  to  us  must  be  determined  by  the 
relations  in  which  they  and  we  stand  to  the  Absolute  Self. 

From  the  epistemological  point  of  view,  this  doctrine  of 
things  amounts  to  saying  that  no  objects  of  man's  cognitive 
experience  can  be  envisaged,  or  conceived  of,  in  independence 
of  the  active  and  ideal  nature  of  man  himself.  From  the  onto- 
logical  point  of  view,  the  very  same  result  takes  the  form  of  a 
declaration  that  all  beings  in  reality  have  an  active  and  ideal 
nature  analogous  to  that  possessed  by  man.  But  this  nature 
they  possess,  and  reveal,  in  different  degrees  of  certainty  and 
of  fullness.  First  of  all,  every  Self  knows  with  the  highest 
degree  of  certainty  and  fullness  what  his  own  real  being  is. 
Second,  and  as  essentially  interwoven  with  this  knowledge, 
every  Self  knows  what  is  the  actual  being  of  those  things  that 
behave  most  like  himself.  They  are  other  selves  —  his 
"fellows  "  —belonging  to  the  species,  man.  Third,  all  living 
beings  are  known  as  sharing  with  the  Self  some  of  the  more 


404  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

important  characteristics  of  that  actual  life  which  the  Self 
knows  as  its  own.  And,  fourth,  there  are  those  non-living 
things,  about  whose  reality  —  that  they  are  —  we  often  think 
ourselves  most  assuredly  convinced  ;  but  about  the  actual 
nature,  the  trans-subjective  characteristics  of  which  —  what 
they  are  —  we  are  most  in  doubt,  and  find  all  our  conceptions 
even  the  most  scientific,  very  obscure.  It  is  the  nature  of 
things,  and  not  the  nature  of  ourselves,  which  offers  the  most 
obscure  depths  and  the  more  fathomless  abysses  of  mystery. 
Within  each  of  these  four  classes  of  the  objects  of  man's 
cognitive  experience,  there  is  an  almost  indefinite  gradation 
of  knowledge,  both  as  respects  its  clearness  and  its  fullness. 
And  between  any  two  adjoining  classes  the  lines  cannot  at  all 
times  be  strictly  drawn.  Different  individuals  and  different 
races  of  man  have  self-knowledge  with  greater  and  less 
degrees  of  approach  to  clearness  and  fullness.  The  race  is 
advancing,  as  the  history  of  speculation  and  of  institutions 
—  social,  political,  ethical  and  religious  —  sufficiently  shows, 
in  all  the  knowledge  that  answers  to  the  very  word  "  Self." 
This  growing  knowledge  of  man's  own  historical  growth,  and 
the  facts  and  principles  of  comparative  psychology,  is  giving 
to  each  student  of  the  subject  a  less  obscure  and  more  broad 
doctrine  of  the  nature  of  man.  Some  portions  of  the  human 
race  there  are,  whose  real  nature  is  as  yet  scarcely  so  well 
known  to  modern  science,  as  is  the  nature  of  many  of  the 
lower  animals.  And  biology  is  constantly  revealing  new 
wonders  and  unsolved  problems  as  to  the  actual,  the  matter- 
of-fact  nature  of  the  lower  animals  and  of  the  plant-life  with 
which  the  destiny  and  behavior  of  the  animals  are  so  closely 
related.  Meanwhile  physics  and  chemistry  are  showing  how 
profoundly  mysterious  is  this  so-called  "  brute  and  inanimate 
matter."  What  a  picture  do  these  sciences  present !  Not 
"  brute  "  or  "  inanimate  "  ;  it  is  rather  one  seething  sea  of  mov- 
ing, interacting  molecules  and  atoms  —  orderly,  terrible,  vin- 
dictive yet  benevolent,  resistless  energy  and  divine  Force,  in 


SPHERES  OF   REALITY  405 

which,  as  a  universal  environment,  all  selves  and  all  things 
"  live  and  move  and  have  their  being." 

All  selves  and  all  things  are,  however,  known  as  constitut- 
ing some  sort  of  a  Unity,  and  as  moving  together  toward  some 
far-off  goal.  Their  processes  of  becoming  do  not  take  place 
without  principles  that  compel  a  certain  oneness  as  well  as 
multiplicity.  Their  changes  are  in  one  space  and  one  time. 
Their  energies  are  capable  of  correlation  under  the  conception 
of  one  force ;  but  this  is  not  as  though  they  were  forms  of  a 
single  blind  impulsion  that  knows  not  how  to  differentiate 
itself,  to  combine  and  to  separate,  for  the  attainment  of  ideal 
ends.  Individual  realities  are  all  ideal  unities  :  and  yet  they 
belong  together  in  the  one  World.  What  sort  of  a  real  Being 
of  the  world  can  serve  as  the  correlate  of  such  a  well-founded 
conception  of  oneness  as  this  ?  An  ontological  doctrine  or 
theory  must  answer  this  inquiry.  We  cannot  refer  this  unity- 
to  the  merely  subjective,  unifying  activity  of  the  mind  of  the 
knower.  The  rather  is  it  a  unity  which  his  knowledge  compels 
him  to  recognize  as  belonging  to  the  actuality  of  the  system 
of  interacting  selves  and  things.  We  can  provide  no  other 
semblance  of  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this  problem,  which  the 
supreme  synthesis  of  philosophy  undertakes,  than  the  answer 
already  suggested.  This  unitary  Being  of  the  World  can  be 
secured  and  accounted  for,  only  if  all  particular  beings  are 
known  as  having  their  Ground  in  an  Absolute  Self. 

In  justification  of  such  a  metaphysical  synthesis  as  this  it 
now  becomes  necessary  briefly  to  describe  the  content  of  the 
conception  we  have  employed,  and  to  show  that  this  conception 
may  be  made  valid  for  the  work  which  the  study  of  reality  re- 
quires of  it.  First :  Can  this  conception  of  an  Absolute  Self  be 
made  clear  and  self-consistent  ?  And,  second,  can  it  then  meet 
the  demands  made  upon  it  for  service  in  the  realms  of  Matter 
and  Mind,  Spirit  and  Nature,  the  Real  and  the  Ideal.  To 
answer  these  inquiries,  so  far  as  general  metaphysics  can 
without  definitely  entering  upon  the  discussion  of  problems  of 


406  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

ethics,  aesthetics,  and  the  philosophy  of  religion,  will  occupy 
us  in  the  concluding  chapters  of  this  book. 

What  right  has  the  searcher  for  a  system  of  metaphysics  so 
to  enlarge  and  elevate  the  conception  of  Self  as  to  prepare  it 
for  union  with  a  conception  like  that  fitly  answering  to  the 
word  "  absolute  "  ?  The  answer  to  this  inquiry  can  be  the 
more  summarily  given  here,  because  it  has  elsewhere  been 
made  the  subject  of  detailed  analysis  and  reflection.1 

Study  of  the  history  of  conceptions  answering  to  the  word 
"  Self,"  or  to  similar  terms,  shows  them  to  have  been  the  sub- 
ject of  a  most  significant  development,  both  in  the  individual 
and  in  the  race.  This  development,  like  every  other  which  is 
significant,  has  not  served  to  simplify  and  reduce  to  the  low 
level  of  a  perfectly  comprehensible  truth,  either  the  concep- 
tions or  the  reality  which  is  the  correlate  of  the  conceptions. 
•The  rather  has  progress  taken  the  direction  of  enriching  the 
content  of  human  thought,  while  clearing  it  of  certain  inter- 
nal contradictions  and  elevating  it  toward  its  ideal,  and  ideally 
most  valuable  form.  If,  then,  these  conceptions  are  consid- 
ered from  the  anthropologist's  point  of  view,  many  diverse  and 
curious  opinions  are  brought  to  light,  as  to  what  the  known 
characteristics  of  selfhood  actually  are.  The  personification 
of  things  and  the  materialization  of  persons  are  found  to  re- 
sult from  tendencies  most  curiously  interdependent  and  mutu- 
ally involved.  All  the  abnormal  conceits  and  hallucinations 
of  the  hypnotic  and  the  insane  with  regard  to  themselves  have 
their  parallels  in  views  and  practices  which  have  been  recog- 
nized as  sane  and  normal  at  some  stage  in  the  evolution  of 
the  race.  To  write  the  history  of  these  conceptions  in  a  man- 
ner at  once  accurate  and  philosophically  critical,  would  be  to 
trace  the  moral,  social,  and  speculative  progress  of  mankind.2 

1  See  the  author's  "  Psychology,  Descriptive  and  Explanatory,"  chap.  xxii. : 
"  The    Knowledge  of   Things    and   the  Knowledge    of   Self ; "  "  Philosophy  of 
Knowledge,"  chap.  vii. :  "  Knowledge  of  Things  and  of  Self ; "  and  the  entire 
volume,  "  Philosophy  of  Mind." 

2  Comp.  the  masterly  summary  of  Volkmann,  "  Lehrbuch  der  Psychologic," 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  407 

If  the  architectonic  of  these  conceptions  be  regarded  from  the 
psychologist's  point  of  view,  one  may  distinguish  the  "  Material 
Self,"  "the  Social  Self,"  and  the  "  Spiritual  Self;  "  and  one 
may  find  all  these,  and  other  modifications  of  the  results  of 
reflective  thinking,  ambiguous  and  confused,  in  themselves 
and  in  their  relations  to  one  another.1  By  carrying  the  analy- 
sis forward  in  a  destructive  rather  than  a  constructive  fash- 
ion, it  is  even  possible  to  show  that  no  one  of  the  several 
forms  of  the  self's  appearance  can  be  identified  with  its 
reality  ;  therefore,  it  is  not  a  "  true  form  "  of  experience,  and 
"  does  not  give  us  the  facts  as  they  are  in  reality,"  but  is  a 
"  mere  appearance,"  a  "  mere  bundle  of  discrepancies." 2 
But  to  leave  in  confusion  the  testimony  of  the  historical  de- 
velopment of  man's  conception  of  his  own  selfhood  ;  or  simply 
to  pass  judgment  upon  that  ambiguity  in  its  use  into  which  all 
men  necessarily  fall ;  and,  especially,  to  convict  the  concep- 
tion of  such  internal  contradictions  as  render  all  its  witness 
to  any  form  of  truth  absolutely  valueless  ;  —  all  these  are, 
in  our  judgment,  either  inadequate  or  misleading  ways  of 
handling  one  of  the  most  important  problems  of  philosophy. 
Two  truths,  which  are  established  by  the  historical  study, 
the  psychological  analysis,  and  the  metaphysical  criticism  of 
the  conception  of  Self,  need  recognition  and  enforcement  at 
this  point.  First :  the  physical,  or  "  thing-like,"  manifesta- 
tion of  the  self  is  essential  to  its  existence  in  any  kind  of  re- 
lations with  other  beings,  under  the  formal  conditions  of 
space  and  time.  But,  second,  this  very  manifestation  is  itself 
of  such  a  character  as  to  lead  us  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
truest  and  most  essential  Self  is  that  nature  which  is  envis- 
aged as  its  own  Life  in  every  act  of  self-consciousness.  In 
the  concrete,  when  thus  conceived  and  stated,  one  side  of  the 

3te  Aufl.,  I.,  pp.  54-216 ;  and  compare  Eucken,  "  Grundbegriffe  der  Gegenwart;  " 
and  a  monograph  on  "The  Development  of  the  Doctrine  of  Personality  in 
Modern  Philosophy,"  by  Wm.  H.  Walker. 

1  See  James,  "  The  Principles  of  Psychology/'  I.,  chap.  x. 

2  Comp.  the  conclusions  of  Mr.  Bradley,  "  Appearance  and  Reality,"  chap.  x. 


408  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

truth  of  man's  experience  is  this  :  I  know  myself  as  related, 
under  the  conditions  of  space  and  time,  to  other  things  only 
as  I  take  up  into  my  selfhood  the  same  physical  and  external 
forms  of  existence  which  all  these  other  things  manifest  to 
me.  But  I  have  also  another  side  to  my  self-conscious  expe- 
rience ;  and  this  shows  me  that  I  am  a  self-active  knower  and 
producer  of  a  continuity  of  conscious  states.  These  conscious 
states,  taken  together,  have  an  ideal  value,  ideal  ends  of  their 
own,  and  a  significant  connection  with  one  another.  It  is  this 
cognitive  and  voluntary  realization  of  ideal  ends  which  reveals 
to  me  my  inmost  being.  Speaking  popularly,  both  sides 
might  be  said  to  unite  in  validating  the  familiar  declaration : 
I  am  an  embodied  spirit,  —  and  so  constituted  a  complete 
Self  in  a  system  of  selves  and  things. 

Translated  into  the  general  propositions  of  systematic  meta- 
physics, the  same  conclusion  may  be  stated  as  follows :  Mat- 
ter, or  the  generalized  conception  of  things  is  a  manifestation 
of  Spirit,  —  the  realization  of  the  inmost  Being  of  the  World, 
under  the  formal  conditions  of  space  and  time.  Thus  the 
true  and  essential  nature  of  the  material  world  is  only  known 
by  means  of  our  self-conscious  recognition  of  our  own  spirits 
—  as  the  inner  and  higher  principle  of  cognitive  experience. 
The  essential  and  real  nature  of  matter,  in  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  word  "  Reality,"  is  to  be  known  only  in  terms 
of  the  Life  of  Spirit. 

Carried  out  into  the  large,  and  applied  to  the  attempt  of 
philosophy  at  a  supreme  synthesis,  these  two  sides  of  man's 
experience  with  himself,  and  with  things,  unite  in  the  following 
conception.  That  system  of  interrelated  beings,  which  con- 
stitutes the  world  as  known  to  man,  is  the  "  manifestation," 
under  the  formal  conditions  of  space  and  time,  of  an  infinite 
and  eternal  Spirit.  How  the  formal  conditions  of  space  and 
time  are  applicable  to  the  reality  of  this  Spirit  has  already 
been  sufficiently  explained.  The  justification  and  interpreta- 
tion of  the  word  which  has  just  been  chosen  (or,  indeed,  of 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY 

any  other  words  which  might  be  chosen  in  its  place)  to  indi- 
cate the  relations  between  the  whole  world  of  man's  actual 
experience  and  its  own  inmost  and  true  Being,  require  further 
reflection.  But  for  the  present  we  may  let  the  term  "  mani- 
festation "  suggest  what  further  reflective  thinking  must  try 
to  define.  What  is  meant  by  Spirit,  however,  is,  in  its  essen- 
tial characteristics,  already  perfectly  clear.  A  Spirit  is  a  Will 
self-active  in  the  realization  of  ideal  ends.  Spirituality  is, 
then,  for  us,  as  individual  and  finite  selves,  and  for  the  exis- 
tences which  constitute  the  unity  which  we  know  the  world 
of  selves  and  of  things  to  be,  the  innermost  essence  of  all 
Reality. 

The  truth  as  respects  the  individual  self  is  illustrated  in 
the  development  of  every  man,  and  in  the  entire  development 
of  the  human  race.  With  the  child  and  with  childish  men, 
by  the  "  person "  is  understood  the  sensitive,  the  feeling, 
thinking,  and  active  body.  Such  parts  of  this  body  as  are 
the  more  obvious  objects  of  sense-perception  or  of  sen- 
suous imagination  may  be,  by  turns,  and  in  accordance  with 
theoretical  or  practical  ends,  identified  either  with  external 
things,  or  with  the  real  self.  They  are  the  factors,  as  it  were, 
which  serve  to  bridge  over  the  stream  of  consciousness  between 
the  wholly  external  world,  the  things  that  are  essentially  not- 
self  and  yet  are  liable  at  any  moment  to  become  necessary 
parts  of  the  manifested  self,  and  those  inmost  experiences 
which  cannot  be  separated  from  the  idea  of  any  conscious 
existence  whatever.  Thus  even  the  crudest  conception  of 
the  Self,  as  related  to  a  system  of  not-selves,  contains  the 
beginnings  of  that  process  which  eventuates  in  the  doctrine 
that  mind  and  matter  are  separated  by  "  the  whole  diameter 
of  being." 

The  growth  of  the  scientific  knowledge  of  human  nature 
serves  a  double  purpose  in  the  direction  already  indicated. 
The  more  we  know  of  ourselves,  of  man,  the  more  clear  in 
character  and  detailed  in  particulars  does  the  conception  of 


410  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

his  physical  organism  become.  This  organism  is  found  to  be, 
in  its  component  parts,  precisely  identical  with  other  things  ; 
from  this  point  of  view,  it  is  only  one  thing  among  countless 
others,  built  up,  moment  after  moment  by  the  constructive 
energy  of  the  restless  atoms.  As  respects  its  form,  its  laws, 
the  causal  connections  which  bind  its  beginnings,  its  changes, 
and  its  ceasing  from  existence,  in  with  the  great  World- 
Course,  the  human  body  belongs  to  the  realm  of  the  physical. 
The  knowledge  of  it  is  given  in  physics,  chemistry,  biology,  — 
the  science  of  things.  But  the  growth  of  our  scientific 
knowledge  of  human  nature  takes  also  another  direction. 
This  is  the  direction  of  deepening,  elevating,  and  enriching 
the  content  of  the  conception  of  a  finite,  personal  Spirit. 

Suppose,  then,  an  answer  is  required  from  the  most  ad- 
vanced conclusions  of  the  physical  and  the  psychological 
•sciences  to  the  question :  What  is  the  reality  of  the  human 
Self  —  as  involving  both  body  and  spirit  ?  The  answer,  when 
these  sciences  have  told  all  that  they  know  or  can  know,  has 
divided  the  reality  into  two  parts,  so  as  to  give  one  part  over 
entirely  to  the  world  of  things,  and  leave  the  other  part  self- 
conscious  although  incapable  of  communication  with  or  of 
playing  a  part  in  this  world  of  things.  For  the  body  is 
known  to  these  sciences  only  as  a  system  of  physical  elements 
which,  coming  from  the  great  stream  of  material  nature, 
under  exceedingly  complex  and  obscure  influences  from  inter- 
nal atomic  forces  and  as  modified  by  the  action  of  their 
environment,  attain  temporarily  a  certain  morphological  and 
physiological  unity ;  and  which  go  through  a  peculiar  course 
of  development.  By  Spirit,  however,  we  are  left  to  under- 
stand the  Subject  of  a  conscious  and  ideal  development  which, 
by  its  own  activity  as  knower  and  doer,  makes  itself  a  real  and 
unitary  being,  with  non-physical  modes  of  its  self-realization. 
Thus  the  innermost,  the  supreme,  and  the  essential  reality  of 
the  Self  —  its  "  in  itself  being,"  if  so  uncouth  a  phrase  may 
still  be  pardoned  —  is  the  spiritual  reality  it  knows  itself  to 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  411 

be  in  the  voluntary  and  self-conscious  pursuit  of  its  own  ideals. 
Its  highest  real  unity  is  also  attained  in  the  same  way,  — 
namely  by  a  conscious  and  voluntary  unifying  of  the  life  of 
consciousness  in  its  direction  toward  selected  ends. 

But  our  doctrine  of  the  reality  of  the  human  self,  as  both 
body  and  spirit,  when  left  in  this,  its  completed  scientific 
form,  lacks  the  theoretical  and  the  practical  unity  which  it 
requires  in  order  to  meet  the  demands,  both  of  philosophy 
and  of  the  life  of  moral  conduct,  artistic  endeavor,  and  re- 
ligious faith.  How  impotent  to  effect  this  required  unity,  is 
any  conception  logically  covered  under  the  term  "  parallel- 
ism," we  have  shown  in  other  connections,  over  and  over 
again.  Mere  parallelism  explains  nothing ;  nor  can  such  a 
relation  eventuate  in  or  even  express  any  actual  connection 
between  the  events  which  run  parallel,  whether  in  space  or  in 
time.  Only  real  beings,  whose  forces  have  regard  to  each  other 
in  accordance  with  some  system  of  ideas  common  to  them  all  can 
effect  any  kind  of  actual  unity.  But  if  it  be  denied  that  the 
Self,  as  both  body  and  spirit  is,  in  reality,  any  kind  of  a  unity, 
then  each  stream  of  human  consciousness  is  so  isolated  from 
the  Being  of  the  World  —  from  all  other  selves  and  all  things 
—  that,  as  a  will,  it  can  effect  nothing  in  this  world,  and  as 
feeling  and  thinking,  it  can  nohow  mentally  represent  the 
truth  of  this  world. 

It  is  absolutely  necessary,  then,  for  metaphysics  to  recog- 
nize the  fundamental  truth  that  man's  selfhood,  as  body  and 
spirit,  has  its  total  being  in  dependence  upon  that  same  Unity 
of  Reality  to  which  all  other  beings  belong.  This  Reality 
makes  us  to  be  the  unity  we  are.  It  furnishes  the  vital 
cement  so  to  speak,  the  interlacing  network  of  connections 
which  temporarily  bind  the  body  and  spirit  into  one  self,  and 
also  unite  this  one  self  with  the  other  beings  of  the  one 
World.  The  most  immediate  and  indubitable  experience 
which  the  mind  has  of  any  causal  relation  is  that  of  the 
peculiar  relation  which  exists  between  the  spirit  and  the  body 


412  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

of  the  individual  man,  in  their  correlated  actions.  Through 
the  organism  —  and  so  far  as  thoroughly  well  certified  exper- 
ience now  goes,  through  it  alone  —  the  innermost  and  essen- 
tial self  is  wrought  upon  by  the  forces  of  the  external  world. 
Through  the  same  organism  —  and  so  far  as  thoroughly  well- 
certified  experience  now  goes,  through  it  alone  —  the  inner- 
most and  essential  self  manifests  its  being,  and  gets  its  will 
and  ideas  realized  by  the  forces  of  the  external  world.  The 
body,  which  is,  from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  but  a  tem- 
porary cross-section,  as  it  were,  in  the  current  of  the  world's 
physical  and  non-self-like  beings,  conditions  and  influences 
the  stream  of  cognitive  and  voluntary  states  of  conscious- 
ness. The  stream  of  conscious  states,  which,  in  the  highest 
and  most  ideal  stages  of  its  flow,  shows  to  itself  the  real 
nature  of  the  spirit,  conditions  and  influences  so  much  of 
physical  nature  as  it  can  reach  in,  and  through  the  body. 
Thus  the  self  knows  itself  as  a  part  of  physical  nature,  linked 
in  as  a  thing  with  all  other  things ;  but  thus,  also,  the  self 
knows  itself  as  a  spirit,  rising  ideally  above  and  dominating 
over  physical  nature. 

The  metaphysics  of  Selfhood,  then,  can  neither  consider 
man's  body  as  the  producer  and  effective  cause  of  man's 
spirit,  nor  consider  his  spirit  as  the  framer  and  builder  of  his 
body.  Nor  can  it  leave  the  two  merely  to  run  parallel,  in 
reality  disconnected,  side  by  side.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
total  human  Self  perceives  itself  as  a  thing-like  existence  ; 
on  the  other  hand,  it  envisages  itself,  as  a  cognitive  and  feel- 
ing Will,  a  non-thing-like  and  spiritual  existence.  Without 
the  one  kind  of  experience,  it  could  have  no  real  being  capable 
of  entering  into  actual  relations  of  living  commerce  —  giving 
and  taking,  putting  forth  and  receiving — with  other  beings 
in  that  system  of  selves  and  things  which  constitutes  the 
known  world.  Without  the  other  kind  of  experience  the  self 
would  be  a  mere  thing;  or,  rather,  without  participation  in 
the  nature  of  spirit,  neither  self-conscious  recognition,  nor 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  413 

intercourse  between  selves,  is  conceivable.-  The  one  all- 
inclusive  Being  of  the  World,  the  Unity  of  Reality,  is  respon- 
sible for  the  union  of  body  and  spirit  in  each  human  Self,  and 
of  each  Self  with  other  selves,  and  of  all  selves  with  all 
things. 

If  now,  however,  the  language  which  it  has  been  found 
necessary  to  employ  in  all  our  explanation  of  the  reality  of 
the  Self,  as  dependent  for  its  being  and  its  manifestation  upon 
the  Being  of  the  World,  is  translated  over  into  the  thoughts 
already  provided  for  it,  we  are  led  again  to  the  conception  of 
an  Absolute  Self.  For  every  characteristic  of  this  Being  of  the 
World,  in  which  all  concrete  beings  u  live  and  move  and  have 
their  being,"  is  constructed  after  the  analogy  of  the  Spirit's 
cognitive  and  self-active  life,  in  the  pursuit  of  ideal  ends. 
This  is  what  the  previous  extended  analysis  has  shown  in 
detail.  To  have  the  unitary  being,  which  knows  itself  as  a 
will  that  is  active  in  the  realization  of  ideal  ends,  —  in  a  word, 
to  have  true  interior  selfhood,  —  this  is  what  we  know  our 
own  most  significant  and  real  existence  to  be.  This  is  the 
highest  and  supremely  ideal  unity  of  what  we  call  "  Spirit," 
or  "  Mind." 

Regarded  as  providing  for  a  unity  of  force,  the  real  princi- 
ple, which  accounts  for  the  world  as  known  by  man,  must  be 
conceived  of  as  one  Will.  Regarded  as  the  ground  of  all  the 
relations  which  are  recognized  as  actually  existing  at  any 
moment  in  the  world's  history,  this  same  principle  must  have 
"  self-consistency."  It  must  provide  for  that  adjustment  of 
innumerable  factors  to  each  other,  in  accordance  with  the 
demands  made  upon  each  by  every  other,  which  is  realized  in 
the  highest  degree  by  a  well-ordered  self.  Regarded  as 
adequate  to  that  formal  unification  which  characterizes  all 
man's  experience  of  things,  as  external  and  extended,  as 
"  occupying  space  "  of  measurable  quantity  and  so  divisible  into 
many  beings  existing  side  by  side  in  the  unity  of  the  one 
world,  this  real  principle  must  be  a  Will  that  differentiates 


414  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

and  distributes,  itself  over  a  variety  of  individuals  and  yet 
binds  them  together  into  ideal  forms.  It  must  account  for  the 
One  and  the  many ;  it  must  accomplish  the  reality  of  particu- 
lar beings  in  the  unity  of  a  single  system.  As  the  explana- 
tion of  the  entire  world's  course,  and  as  setting  the  goal  to 
that  process  of  development  of  which  It  is  itself  the  never- 
failing  Source  and  innermost  Life,  this  principle  must  give 
forms  and  laws  to  an  ontological  process  of  becoming.  But  the 
very  conception  of  such  a  Principle  of  becoming  is  realizable 
only  in  the  nature  of  a  Spirit  which  can  set  into  reality,  as  a 
process  in  time,  its  own  ideals. 

The  only  true  and  highest  Unity  conceivable  by  man  is  that 
possessed,  in  reality,  by  the  Life  of  a  Spirit.  Or,  in  other 
words,  it  is  the  unceasing,  inner  activity  of  the  Self,  which  by 
self-consciousness,  recognitive  memory,  and  rational  thinking 
unifies  the  different  "  momenta  "  of  experience,  that  consti- 
tutes the  essence  of  its  own  unitary  being.  As  we  have  else- 
where said  :  "  that,  and  nothing  else  is  the  essence  of  the  uni- 
tary being  of  mind.  With  such  unity  a  great  variety  of  so- 
called  faculties  is  in  no  way  inconsistent.  The  rather  is  the 
unitary  being  of  the  mind  dependent  upon  the  exercise  in  the 
fullest  way,  of  all  the  faculties ;  for  they  are  all  implied  in 
every  act  of  self-consciousness ;  the  completer  their  activity > 
the  more  truly  one  is  this  mind." 

That  which  is  known  to  be  true  of  the  most  real  of  all 
unities  sets  the  conditions  under  which  we  must  conceive  of 
the  Unity  that  in  some  sort,  the  totality  of  things  is  known  to 
possess.  It  is  the  oneness  of  the  Spirit  which  is  in  them  which 
gives  to  things  their  ontological  Unity.  Without  this  concep- 
tion of  them,  the  seeming  unitary  Being  of  the  World  is  mere 
seeming ;  it  is  only  the  temporary  resultant  of  subjective  con- 
ditions and  of  the  unifying  mental  activity  of  the  observer's 
mind.  Without  this  conception,  the  World  is,  in  no  sense 
whatever,  a  Unity  of  Reality.  It  does  not  even  possess  so 
much  of  actual  oneness  as  belongs  to  the  stream  of  the  indivi- 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  415 

dual's  consciousness ;  and  this  regarded  as  mere  stream  is  only 
succession  of  states,  which  slips  away  unceasingly.  It  never  is ; 
it  is  always  becoming.  Therefore,  the  Unity  of  the  entire  world's 
being  and  course,  unless  it  has  reality  in  the  Life  of  some  self- 
conscious  Spirit,  consists  only  of  countless  millions  of  separate 
streams,  that  never  unite  in  one  stream,  but  keep  slipping  away 
unceasingly,  in  diverse  and  indeterminate  directions. 

If,  however,  we  try  to  take  the  crudely  realistic  point  of  view,, 
then  the  Unity  of  Reality  becomes  nothing  but  bare  totality  of 
countless  millions  of  things  —  u  crude  lumpishness  "  of  exist- 
ences that  are  void  of  so  much  of  actual  unification  as  belongs 
to  a  heap  of  grains  of  sand.  Here,  again,  the  instant  any 
attempt  is  made  to  give  intelligible  terms  to  that  unity  which 
our  experience  compels  us  to  ascribe  to  things,  the  familiar 
talk  begins  of  specific  "  forms,"  of  "  obedience  to  laws,"  of 
"  conformity  to  ends,"  of  "  actions  "  and  "  interactions " 
resulting  in  ideal  results,  of  a  course  of  "  development "  reach- 
ing onward  toward  some  far-off  goal.  But  all  these  are  term& 
which  have  meaning  only  for  a  Spirit,  conceived  of  as  a  Will 
energizing  so  as  to  set  into  reality  its  own  ideas.  In  brief,  to 
ascribe  any  Unity  in  Reality  to  the  multitude  of  concrete  beings 
and  transactions  of  the  world  as  known  to  man,  is  to  affirm 
that  this  world  is  the  manifestation  of  a  Spirit's  unitary  Life. 

For  the  fuller  interpretation  of  all  such  words  as  are 
designed  to  indicate  the  relations  existing  between  the  Being 
we  have  called  an  "  Absolute  Self "  and  all  finite  selves  and 
things,  we  must  ask  the  patience  needed  for  a  brief  waiting.  At 
the  present  moment  we  wish  briefly  to  state  the  conclusion  at 
which  it  was  desired  to  arrive  by  the  discussions  of  this  chapter. 

1.  As  regards  the  nature  of  Reality,  the  sphere  of  man's 
assured  and  defensible  knowledge  is,  both  for  the  individual 
and  for  the  race,  one  of  enlarging  extension.  This  is  true, 
whether  the  particular  kind  of  reality  sought,  be  that  of  one's 
self,  —  body  and  mind,  —  or  of  other  selves,  or  of  material 
things.  What  sort  of  a  being  the  human  spirit  really  and 


416  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

essentially  is,  will  constantly  become  a  subject  of  clearer  and 
better  certified  knowledge ;  man  knows  himself  as  spirit,  with 
an  increasing  wealth  of  content  and  assurance  of  conviction. 
Modern  science  is  throwing  floods  of  new  light  upon  biological 
problems,  hitherto  obscure  or  even  undreamed  of  ;  and  all  this 
light  is  reflected  upon  that  most  complicated  of  all  living 
forms,  the  bodily  organism  of  man.  Historical,  anthropologi- 
cal, and  psychological  researches  are  increasing  the  world's 
stock  of  information  regarding  the  actual  nature  of  man,  in  his 
sexual,  political,  and  other  social  relations.  Although  the 
term  "  social  self  "  is  a  complete  misnomer,  and  the  use  of  the 
term  even  with  a  figurative  reference  likely  to  be  mischievous, 
certain  truths  for  which  the  conception  stands  are  firmly 
established.  Meantime  the  cheniico-physical  knowledge  of 
mere  things  so-called  has  been  growing  apace.  And  all  the 
growth  in  spite  of  many  deficiencies,  gaps,  and  discrepancies, 
and  of  much  admixture  of  error,  cannot  be  denied  to  have 
reference  to  the  evolution  of  man's  knowledge  of  Reality.  The 
field  won  at  the  expense  of  so  much  human  toil  and  suffering 
cannot  be  surrendered  to  those  who  plead  either  the  mistakes 
and  limitations  of  science  or  the  doubts  and  denials  of  an 
agnostic  philosophy. 

2.  It  may  also  be  claimed,  as  an  assured  result  of  human 
knowledge,  that  all  the  beings  and  all  the  transactions  of  the 
world  constitute  some  sort  of  a  unity.  All  so-called  laws, 
indeed,  seem  to  admit  of  exceptions.  Strictly  demonstrative 
proof  is  nowhere  applicable  in  the  attainment  of  knowledge  as 
to  the  universal  and  unchanging  nature,  even  of  physical 
beings  and  physical  events.  Wandering  stars  there  are; 
kinds  of  atoms  that  seem  not  to  enter  at  all  freely  into  the 
mixtures  upon  which  the  existence  and  the  serviceableness  of 
things  depend  ;  monsters  that  appear  as  whimsical  departures 
from  the  onward  march  of  life  towards  its  crowning  achieve- 
ments ;  caprices  in  the  conduct  of  nature  not  a  few.  Human 
history  and  human  development,  not  infrequently,  seems  void 


SPHERES  OF  REALITY  417 

of  all  control  under  intelligible  ideas.  Yet  the  totality  is  a 
Cosmos,  an  orderly  whole  ;  the  world's  course  gives  increas- 
ing tokens  of  a  movement  toward  some  sort  of  an  ideal  and 
unifying  end.  Reality  is,  in  its  trans-subjective  character, 
—  as  regards  its  "  in-itself "  Being,  —  a  Unity ;  it  is  not 
merely  the  shadow  cast  on  a  dark  background  of  chaos,  by 
the  unifying  actus  of  man's  conscious  mind. 

3.  But  what  every  knower   knows  most   immediately  and 
assuredly  —  by  an  envisagement  which  carries  with  it  a  clear 
but  incomplete  picture  of  the  "  what,"  and  which  attaches  this 
picture  to  the  consciousness  of  a  "  that "  —  is  the  here-and-now 
being  of  his  self-conscious,  willing,  and  cognitive  Self.    Analy- 
sis of  the  nature  of  knowledge  shows  that  in  the  cognitive  pro- 
cess itself  all  the  spirit  of  man  —  intellect,  feeling,  and  will 
—  takes  part.     For  this  highest  and  most  assured  knowledge 
is  the  envisagement  of  the  nature  of  reality  as  a  self-conscious 
spiritual  life.     Further  analysis  of  those  characteristics  which 
all  men  agree  to  ascribe  to  external  things  shows  that  their 
reality,  too,  is  known  — though   much  more   obscurely  and 
with  fainter  conviction  —  as  consisting  in  the  possession  of 
characteristics  like  those  which  the  knower  knows  himself  to 
have.     And  even  as  the  individual  man  comes  to  regard  his 
own   body  in  its  manifold  relations  to  the  life  of  the  spirit 
that  "  is  in  him,"  he  finds  the  same  truth  exemplified.     This 
body  is  a  thing  among  things ;  but  it  joins  the  spirit  in  the 
temporary  work  of  constructing  the  unity  of  a  Self,  because 
it,  too,  partakes  in  the  characteristics  of  spirit  —  though  not 
identical  with  the  spirit  of  the  self-conscious  knower.    .It  is  a 
loan  from  nature,  borrowed  on  terms  which  indicate  that  the 
temporary  partnership  thus  formed  is  significant  as  to  the  real 
nature  of  the  human  body  as  well  as  of  every  other  thing. 

4.  And,  finally,  the  object  which  the  supreme  synthesis  of 
reflective  thinking   constructs  cannot,  without  qualification, 
be  said  to  be  an  object  of  knowledge  ;   but  neither  is  it  an 
object  of  pure  imagination,  or  of  faith  that  reposes  on  grounds 


418  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

warm  with  emotion  but  bare  of  knowledge.  Like  all  other 
legitimate  syntheses,  this  synthesis  of  speculative  philosophy 
has  its  grounds  in  knowledge ;  and  it  has  reference,  not  to 
mere  forms  or  laws  of  thinking  but  to  the  constitution  of  the 
real,  to  that  which  is  "  trans-subjective  "  in  the  sense  of  being 
independent  for  its  own  actualization  upon  the  cognitive  activ- 
ity of  man.  For  this  reason  we  have  called  our  discussions  a 
"  Theory  of  Reality."  And,  indeed,  metaphysics,  like  all 
serious  pursuits  of  the  reflective  mind,  starts  with  knowledge. 
In  its  analysis  of  the  categories  and  its  interpretation  of  their 
meaning  as  applied  to  selves  and  to  things,  metaphysics  is 
knowledge.  Thus  far  pursued,  it  states  its  results  in  some- 
what like  the  following  terms :  The  world  of  concrete  reali- 
ties, existing  under  the  formal  conditions  of  space  and  time, 
is  known  as  some  sort  of  a  unity  after  the  analogy  of  the 
self.  This  larger  Self,  which  somehow  comprehends  myself, 
body  and  mind,  and  all  other  selves  and  things,  we  have 
ventured  to  call  the  "  Absolute  Self,"  —  with  the  promise  to 
consider  whether  there  is  any  necessary  impropriety,  not  to 
say  self-contradiction,  in  such  a  compound  term.  Having,  in 
reliance  upon  the  advanced  development  of  the  knowledge  of 
the  race,  felt  the  impulse  to  frame  a  theory  which  shall  express, 
upon  the  basis  of  this  knowledge,  the  highest  ideals  of  what 
really  is  in  each  self,  and  of  what  ought  to  be  realized  in  the 
world  at  large,  philosophy  attempts  its  supreme  synthesis. 
The  inner  reality  of  all  beings  is  /Spirit ;  the  system  of  known 
selves  and  things  is  the  "  manifestation"  in  time  and  space  of 
this  Spirit. 

Only  ethics,  art,  and  religion,  can  properly  expand,  support, 
and  glorify  such  a  conclusion  as  the  foregoing.  At  the  same 
time,  this  is  a  legitimate  conclusion  of  reflective  thinking 
upon  a  basis  furnished  by  an  analysis  of  undoubted  cognitive 
experience.  It  remains  for  the  present  treatise  only  to  ex- 
amine this  synthesis  in  comparison  with  others  that  are 
founded  upon  the  same  experience. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

MATTER 

AMONG  the  conceptions  under  which  the  reflective  thinking 
of  man  has  endeavored  to  summarize  the  permanent  and  uni- 
versal characteristics  of  the  being  and  behavior  of  things, 
there  is  one  which  seems  most  remote  from  the  conclusions- 
reached  by  our  previous  metaphysical  discussions.  The  term 
answering  to  this  conception  is  "  Matter ; "  and  the  specula- 
tive synthesis  which  rests  satisfied  with  this  term  as  affording 
an  acceptable  explanatory  principle  is  called  "  materialism." 
In  the  history  of  philosophy,  at  least  so  far  as  philosophy  has 
been  pursued  by  those  who  aim  at  a  comprehensive  and  sys- 
tematic technique,  so-called  materialism  has  commonly  been 
more  or  less  in  disrepute.  Especially  at  the  present  time  is 
it  true  that  few,  or  none,  who  cultivate  the  metaphysics  of 
the  schools  are  willing  to  espouse  and  defend  the  term,  how- 
ever much  of  its  ancient  or  more  modern  tenets  they  may  actu- 
ally credit.  Therefore,  lively  polemics  or  attacks  in  front  as 
directed  against  materialism,  are  at  present  destined  to  be 
regarded  as  similar  to  the  thankless  task  of  fighting  ghosts 
or  of  pulling  down  men  of  straw.  Nor  does  the  case  of  the 
writer  who  undertakes  this  task  seem  improved  after  ifc  has 
been  shown  that  the  evil  remains,  though  its  title  be  changed ; 
or  even  that  the  materialistic  way  of  regarding  the  world  and 
human  life  is  all  the  more  intellectually  seductive  and  prac- 
tically mischievous  because  its  advocates  will  not  frankly 
acknowledge  their  true  allegiance  by  adopting  a  time-honored, 
name. 


420  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Polemics,  however,  even  if  they  were  at  all  likely  to  be 
grateful  and  effective  with  present  day  students  of  meta- 
physical system,  would  not  accord  with  the  most  cherished 
purpose  of  this  book.  It  is  not  so  much  dialectics  even  as 
it  is  a  receptive  and  genial  criticism,  which  we  think  it  right 
to  employ  in  discussing  any  "  theory  of  reality "  that  is  a 
rival  of  our  own.  Nor  are  we  inclined  to  make  an  exception 
in  the  case  of  that  theory  which  might  properly  enough  be 
called  "  Modern  Materialism."  For  the  term  "  Matter "  is 
convenient  and  even  necessary.  And  the  conceptions  which 
the  term  embodies,  though  in  a  somewhat  unwarrantably 
loose  and  confused  manner,  are  valid  for  the  philosophical 
as  well  as  for  the  scientific  understanding  of  reality.  In- 
deed, they  are,  in  part,  the  very  conceptions  with  which  we 
have  been  familiarizing  ourselves ;  and  for  the  valid  applica- 
tion of  which  to  the  real  being  and  actual  transactions  of  all 
things  ("non-selves")  we  have  been  contending. 

But  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  experience  which  justifies 
so  large  and  loose  a  formation  as  the  conception  answering 
to  the  term  Matter  ?  It  is  no  less  than  that  involved  in  the 
following  line  of  thought  that  leads  up  to  a  conclusion  which 
one  need  not  hesitate  to  embrace.  Material  beings,  so-called, 
considered  as  they  really  exist  and  actually  set  up  the  changes 
whose  forms  and  laws  science  investigates,  cannot  be  ex- 
plained at  all  except  upon  some  theory  which  admits  them 
to  a  certain  share  in  the  characteristics  of  an  Absolute  Self. 
Nor,  when  the  question  is  raised :  "  In  precisely  what  of  the 
characteristics  of  selfhood  do  things  share  ? "  can  the  inves- 
tigator easily  discern  where  the  limit  is  firmly  and  unmistak- 
ably to  be  set.  For,  if  we  are  to  find  in  "matter"  its  own 
explanatory  principle,  then  surely  this  principle  must  include 
those  conceptions  that  are  needed  to  explain  individual  things 
and  their  transactions,  as  given  in  our  actual  experience  with 
things.  But  this  significant  conclusion  has  been  growing 
clearer  from  the  beginning  of  the  present  discussion:  The 


MATTER  421 

existence  of  each  thing  and  the  actuality  of  every  transaction 
between  things,  is  in  need  of  all  the  categories  for  its  complete 
explanation.  But  all  the  categories  are  interconnected,  and 
yet  not  identical  "  moments "  of  man's  selfhood  projected 
into  things.  The  warrant  for  this  procedure  lies  so  deep 
in  the  very  nature  of  human  knowledge  that  only  in  this  way 
is  knowledge  at  all  possible  for  man.  Its  warrant  lies  so  deep 
in  the  very  nature  of  the  object  of  knowledge  that  only  in  this 
way  does  man  know  anything  about  so-called  external  nature. 
If,  then,  the  term  "  matter  "  is  used  at  all  as  an  explana- 
tory metaphysical  principle,  one  of  two  admissions  must  con- 
stantly accompany  its  use.  Either  it  must  be  admitted  that 
the  term  is  simply  designed  to  summarize  some  of  the  more 
non-self-like  characteristics  and  doings  of  things — such,  for 
example,  as  astronomy,  physics,  and  chemistry  make  the 
subjects  of  investigation ;  or  else  it  must  be  admitted  that 
by  the  term  much  more  is  meant  than  the  merely  popular  or 
the  customary  scientific  use  of  it  would  seem  to  justify.  In 
the  one  case  matter  becomes  an  abstraction  for  certain 
definite  characteristics  only  of  the  Absolute  Self,  as  these 
characteristics  are  expressed  in  things,  but  without  recogniz- 
ing their  essentially  self-like  character.  In  the  other  case, 
the  term  would  much  better  be  dropped  entirely,  for  its  use 
is  likely  to  be  deceptive  by  way  of  covering  much  more  than 
is  intended  or  is  clearly  apparent.  In  other  words,  just  so 
long  as  the  recognized  characteristics  of  all  material  exist- 
ences are  confined  to  the  "crude  lumpishness "  and  mere 
massive  inertia  of  things,  the  principle  called  matter  is 
quite  unable  to  afford  a  complete  explanation  of  any  thing, 
or  of  any  transaction  between  things.  To  give  to  this  prin- 
ciple any  life  and  efficiency,  it  is  necessary  to  introduce  still 
other  "moments"  into  our  grouping  of  conceptions  under 
this  term.  And  to  make  the  principle  adequate  to  explain 
the  infinite  variety  of  that  system  of  concrete  and  actual 
things  with  which  man's  cognitive  experience  presents  him, 


422  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

it  is  necessary  so  to  enlarge  this  group  of  conceptions  as  to 
comprise  within  it  all  those  categories,  the  essential  nature  and 
the  significance  of  which  are  constituents  of  our  theory  of 
reality.  That  is  to  say,  "  matter  "  must  have  become  some- 
thing far  different  from  what  is  ordinarily  understood  by 
matter,  in  order  fully  to  summarize  the  explanation  of  any 
material  Thing. 

The  compound  conception  indicated  by  the  word  "  matter  " 
must  always  be  regarded  as  an  abstraction  derived  from  the 
study  of  particular  things.  This  is  true  whether  our  atten- 
tion be  confined  to  those  meanings  which  are  empirical  and 
scientific  in  their  genesis  and  character,  or  whether  our  criti- 
cism be  extended  to  any  of  its  more  speculative  meanings. 
As  Wundt  has  well  said : 1  "In  truth  the  speculative  and  the 
empirico-scientific  conception  of  matter,  in  spite  of  the  differ- 
ence of  motives  that  have  produced  them,  form  constituents 
of  a  single  development  in  so  far  as,  in  both  cases,  the  funda- 
mental relation  maintained  by  the  knower  to  his  object,  is, 
in  fine,  the  same."  To  show  this  it  is  scarcely  necessary 
to  repeat  the  familiar  statement  that  there  is  in  reality  no 
matter  in  general ;  in  reality,  there  are  only  concrete  indi- 
vidual things.  By  using  a  term,  then,  which  summarizes 
our  experience  with  these  things,  it  can  only  be  meant  to 
designate  that  complex  conception  which  includes  the  char- 
acteristics in  the  possession  of  which  they  all  agree.  But 
each  of  their  characteristics,  in  turn  (such  as  "  mass,"  "  in- 
ertia," "  impenetrability,"  etc.)  is  itself  existent  only  as  a 
conception  derived  from  observing  the  behavior,  under  a 
great  variety  of  circumstances  and  in  varying  relations,  of 
these  same  concrete  individual  things.  Therefore  it  is  proper 
to  speak  of  the  term  "Matter"  as  resulting  from  the  second 
degree  of  abstractness,  since  it  stands  for  a  "grouping"  of 
conceptions,  a  synthesis  of  many  thoughts,  each  of  which  is 
derived  from  many  individual  acts  of  our  experience  with 

things. 

1  System  der  Philosophie,  p.  447. 


MATTER  423 

It  is  quite  too  often  forgotten  that  the  valid  and  defen- 
sible conception  of  matter,  whether  empirical  and  scientific  or 
more  purely  speculative,  is  a  very  modern  affair.  What  it  is 
to  be  a  real  thing,  is  a  question  which  the  knowledge  of 
man  has  always  prepared  him  to  answer  in  a  practically  satis- 
factory although  very  fragmentary  way.  But,  What  are  the 
accredited  characteristics  of  matter  in  general  ?  is  a  question 
for  the  answer  to  which  the  requisite  information  has  been 
wanting  until  comparatively  recent  times.  It  is,  moreover,  a 
question  which,  in  our  judgment,  only  the  physical  and  natural 
sciences,  are  competent  to  answer  or  even  to  essay.  Purely 
speculative  answers  to  such  an  inquiry,  or  answers  which  take 
their  point  of  starting  in  the  interests  of  philosophy,  are 
worthless.  Only  from  the  observation  of  what  concrete 
things  really  are,  and  of  what  they  actually  do,  can  the 
problem,  What  is  matter?  find  its  valid  solution.  We  ac- 
cept, then,  the  guidance  of  the  physico-chemical  sciences  in 
the  consideration  of  this  problem  ;  but  we  reserve  here,  as 
everywhere,  the  rights  of  criticism  and  of  the  metaphysician's 
point  of  view.  When,  then,  it  is  said  by  a  physicist  like  Sir 
William  Thomson :  "  We  cannot  of  course  give  a  definition 
of  matter  which  will  satisfy  the  metaphysician,  but  the  natur- 
alist may  be  content  to  know  matter  as  that  which'  can  be 
perceived  by  the  senses,  or  as  that  which  can  be  acted  upon 
by,  or  can  exert  a  force,"  our  response  is  :  "  The  case  is  not 
at  all  so."  The  metaphysician  is  in  duty  bound  to  be  satisfied 
with  any  definition  which  the  naturalist  affords,  —  if  only,  this 
definition  satisfies  the  two  principal  qualifications  of  every 
satisfactory  definition.  First :  it  must  be  comprehensive  and 
internally  consistent ;  but  above  all  it  must  be,  second,  based 
upon  undoubted  matter  of  fact. 

What  the  would-be  constructor  of  a  system  of  metaphysics 
will  do  with  the  naturalist's  conception  of  matter,  when  once  it 
has  been  made  satisfactory  to  all  the  naturalists  themselves, 
may  be  described  as  follows :  He  will  test  the  conception  to  see 


424  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

if  it  possesses  the  characteristics  of  every  satisfactory  defini- 
tion ;  he  will  then  accept  it,  and  subject  it  to  the  process  of 
further  reflective  thinking  with  a  view  to  discern  its  significance 
for  the  truth  of  reality  and  its  place  in  a  systematic  and  crit- 
ical Theory  of  Reality.  But,  alas!  at  the  present  time  the 
former  of  these  tasks  is  the  more  difficult  of  the  two.  For  it 
is  not  so  much  the  discontent  of  metaphysicians  with  natural- 
ists, as  the  discontent  of  naturalists  with  one  another,  and  with 
their  own  knowledge  of  the  subject,  which  furnishes  the  chief 
cause  of  the  difficulties  experienced  by  the  expert  student  of 
the  philosophy  of  nature. 

No  one  who  undertakes  to  criticise  the  current  conceptions 
of  authorities  in  physical  science  can  fail  to  be  impressed  with 
their  confused  and  sometimes  contradictory  character.  In 
spite  of  this  the  student  of  metaphysics  must  —  as  has  been 
said  —  learn  primarily  from  these  authorities  his  answer  to 
the  question,  "  What  is  this  so-called  *  Matter,'  and  what  can 
It  alone  do  ? "  We  shall  now  briefly  pursue  the  quest  for 
satisfaction  to  this  same  inquiry.  We  shall  do  this  remem- 
bering that  the  speculative  conception  of  matter  must  be 
based  upon  the  empirical  and  the  scientific  conception ;  and 
also  that  every  conception,  whether  that  of  the  naturalist  or 
that  of  the  metaphysician,  is  only  a  convenient  abstraction 
designed  to  summarize  certain  characteristics  of  the  being 
and  behavior  of  things.  On  the  one  hand,  then,  the  con- 
ception of  matter  in  general  must  cover  all  that  things  in 
general  really  are,  and  can  actually  do ;  but  if,  on  the  other 
hand,  this  conception  requires  at  any  time  to  be  so  expanded 
as  to  include  characteristics  which  are  not  properly  ascrib- 
able  to  particular  things,  then  this,  its  enlarged  significance, 
must  be  frankly  recognized  and  taken  into  account  by  our 
theory  of  reality. 

The  characteristic,  or  aspect,  of  material  beings  that  seems 
most  foreign  to  any  conclusion  which  affirms  the  ultimate 
spiritual  nature  of  so-called  matter  is,  of  course,  their  "  mass  " 


MATTER  425- 

—  with  the  related  qualities  of  extension  in  three  dimensions, 
of  solidity,  inertia,  weight,  momentum,  etc.  Mass  is  the  one 
essential  and  unalterable  characteristic  of  matter;  and  its 
expansion  or  contraction  in  volume,  its  increase  or  diminu- 
tion of  solidity,  the  overcoming  or  the  persistence  of  its- 
inertia,  the  changing  weight  of  bodies  as  dependent  upon  their 
relations  in  space,  and  the  alterations  in  momentum  that  are 
connected  with  changes  in  velocity  —  all  these  do  not  affect,, 
but  rather  assume  the  continuity  and  unalterableness  of  mass. 
Let  a  given  body  be  compressed  so  as  to  reach  its  utmost 
limit  of  density  or  be  dissipated  through  immeasurable  space ;. 
let  it  be  rendered  motionless  or  shot  onward  with  inconceiv- 
able rapidity ;  let  it  become  a  member  of  a  complicated  system 
of  bodies  or  be  isolated  so  as,  ex  hypotliesi,  to  stand  alone  in 
the  universe,  and  through  all  these  changes  its  mass  remains 
unchanged.  As  formally  constituted  any  particular  material 
body  can  be  put  out  of  existence ;  the  characteristics  of  its 
energizing  may  be  profoundly  changed ;  it  may  be  rendered 
quite  unrecognizable  by  the  senses  which  were  once  familiar 
with  it ;  or  it  may  be  made  impossible  of  recognition  by  any  of 
the  senses.  But  its  mass  cannot  be  annihilated  or  diminished. 
Mass  is  the  permanent  and  essential  characteristic  of  all 
matter ;  or  —  to  reverse  the  statement  without  changing  its 
meaning :  All  Matter  has  mass.  Such  is  the  firm  conviction 
of  modern  physics,  however  contrary  to  the  immediate  evi- 
dence of  the  senses  such  a  conviction  may  seem  to  be. 

And  what  is  true  of  each  material  body  is  true  of  that 
entire  collection  of  such  bodies  which  science  recognizes  as 
constituting  the  material  universe.  The  mass  of  the  matter 
in  this  universe  is  assumed  itself  to  remain,  amidst  all  changes 
in  the  bodies  over  which  it  is  distributed,  forever  unchanged. 

Now  "  that  which "  has  for  its  most  fundamental  and 
unalterable  characteristic  the  possession  of  mere  sameness  of 
quantity,  and  which  makes  its  being  in  reality  known  by 
persistently  "  bulking  "  the  same,  seems  most  unspiritual  and 


426  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

impersonal,  no  doubt.  For  was  it  not  matter,  thus  con- 
sidered, which  Newton  spoke  of  as  "  brute  and  inanimate  ? " 
But  all  matter  is  necessarily  thus  to  be  considered,  with  what- 
ever other  changing  characteristics  it  may  seem  to  be 
endowed.  How,  then,  can  its  "  self -like  "  character  be  main- 
tained ?  How  can  matter,  in  general,  be  regarded  as  a  mani- 
festation, creation,  or  revelation,  or  as  an  emanation,  aspect, 
or  phase,  of  an  Absolute  Self  ? 

The  particular  choice  of  words  to  indicate  the  permanent 
and  essential  relations  between  Matter  and  the  Absolute  Self 
does  not  concern  us  at  this  point.  But  the  essentially  self-like 
character  of  matter,  even  as  treated  by  the  physics  of  "  mass," 
is  apparent  when  we  think  ourselves  through,  along  these  two 
lines  of  reflection  :  first,  so  as  to  determine  what  is  meant  in 
reality  by  ascribing  mass,  and  its  allied  characteristics,  to  all 
matter ;  and  second,  so  as  to  estimate  how  much  (or  rather, 
how  little,  how  absolutely  nothing),  of  our  experience  with 
material  things  can  be  accounted  for  in  terms  of  mere 
mass. 

The  experience  with  things  in  which  originates  the  phy- 
sicist's right  to  regard  matter  as  having  the  permanent  char- 
acteristic of  mass  is  not  difficult  to  describe  or  to  understand. 
Things  affect  his  sense-consciousness ;  and  in  his  perceptive 
experience  they  appear  as  changing  their  spatial  qualities 
and  spatial  relations,  in  a  way  that  can  be  directly  measured, 
or  indirectly  estimated,  quantitatively.  Now  the  mass  of 
matter  is  the  quantity,  or  amount,  of  the  "  that-which " 
whose  name  is  "  matter."  To  say  that  all  matter  always 
has  mass  is  the  same  thing  as  to  say  that  the  being  of  all 
material  things  can  always  be  known,  or  imagined,  as  "  so 
much  "  of  a  universal  substrate.  What  is  thus  quantitatively 
measured  or  estimated  by  the  physicist  is  always  —  primarily 
considered  —  the  intensity,  or  the  extensity  of  his  own  sensu- 
ous experience.  And  what  measures,  or  estimates,  is  the 
physicist's  intellect.  When,  then,  it  is  affirmed  that  all 


MATTER  427 

"  matter  has  mass,"  it  is  stated,  on  the  basis  of  a  cognitive 
experience  with  all  particular  things,  that  quantity  and 
number  are  not  merely  the  physicist's  subjective  experiences 
of  sense  and  intellect  but  are  also  categories  which  belong 
to  things  in  reality.  But  what  it  is  to  have  a  being  that  is 
measurable  and  numerable,  and  what  it  is  actually  to  possess 
the  categories  of  quantity  and  of  number,  has  already  been 
made  clear.  The  importance,  the  necessity  evert,  of  giving 
an  interpretation  in  terms  of  selfhood,  to  these  categories  — 
not  the  less  when  they  are  applied  to  material  things  —  has 
been  sufficiently  emphasized.  All  matter  has  —  nay,  It  essen- 
tially is  —  measurable  quantity.  Quite  contrary,  then,  to  the 
prevalent  impression,  if  we  make  serious  work  of  applying 
these  conceptions  to  the  ezfra-mentally  real,  we  do  but  assert 
its  permanent  and  unchanging  possession  of  certain  funda- 
mental self-like  characteristics. 

Nor  is  the  cogency  of  the  conclusion  diminished  but  rather 
enhanced  by  accepting  those  extensions  of  it  upon  which  the 
modern  science  of  physics  particularly  insists.  In  affirming 
that  the  mass  of  the  matter  of  the  universe  is  known,  or  as- 
sumed, to  be  unchangeable,  the  physicist  pronounces  no  valid 
conclusion  as  to  the  finiteness,  or  infinity,  of  the  World- 
Ground.  He  only  states  his  conviction  that,  so  far  as  man's 
experience  with  the  system  of  material  things  goes,  this 
assumption  of  its  unchanging  quantity,  is  the  best  in  accord- 
ance with  that  experience.  That  is  to  say,  as  the  data  of 
experience  accumulates,  science  is  better  able  to  affirm  that, 
if  any  relatively  large  amounts  of  matter  were  being  added 
to,  or  subtracted  from  the  known  physical  universe,  we 
should  probably  be  able  in  time  to  detect  the  gain  or  the  loss. 
But  that  the  Absolute  Self  is  not  slowly  increasing  or  di- 
minishing this  quantitative  sum-total  of  his  immanent  mani- 
festation —  much  less  that  He  never  will,  or  that  He  cannot 
—  physical  science  has  no  power  to  pronounce !  Nor  does 
the  physicist  make  any  pretence  here  to  be  dealing  with  the 


428  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

metaphysically  Infinite.  For,  as  Riehl,1  following  the  lead 
of  Diihring,2  has  said :  "  An  unchangeable  quantity  is  finite. 
So,  because  matter  and  force  are  unchangeable  in  quantity, 
they  must  be  finite  in  quantity  ;  for  the  infinite  is  no  quantity, 
and  the  indefinite  is  no  unchangeable  quantity.  The  matter  is 
determined  by  its  mass ;  therefore,  the  total  sum  of  mass  in 
the  universe  is  a  finite  quantity,  or  in  other  words  the  world 
is  finite  as  to  mass."  But  to  all  these  statements  of  Riehl 
must  be  added  the  qualification  —  so  far  as  known  to  our 
sense-experience  and  capable  of  being  treated  by  the  empirical 
science  of  physics. 

Neither  does  the  physical  conception  of  the  unchangeable 
character  of  the  world's  mass  of  matter  affect  either  the 
character  or  the  validity  of  our  conceptions  of  space,  time,, 
and  causation.  And  if  under  the  phrase,  "  the  world  as  a 
whole,"  it  is  meant  to  include  the  existence  and  development 
of  finite  selves,  the  historical  evolution  of  selves  and  of  things 
in  their  mutual  relations,  and  the  all-inclusive  Reality  of  the 
World-Ground,  then  the  following  declarations  of  the  author 
just  quoted  are  undoubtedly  also  true :  "  The  quantity  of 
mass,  and  the  extent  of  it  in  space,  plus  the  sum  of  all  pro- 
cesses in  time,  does  not  exhaust  the  quantity  of  the  world 
as  a  whole ;  this  whole  does  not  come  under  a  concept  which 
is  abstracted  from  the  effect  of  things  on  conscious  beings." 
This  view  of  the  problem  of  mass,  as  physics  considers  it, 
enforces  rather  than  contradicts  the  following  important 
conclusion :  Matter,  considered  as  having  mere  mass,  is  as 
yet  not  an  effective,  explanatory  principle  of  things  ;  it  is  not 
/  matter  at  all  in  any  meaning  of  the  term  which  will  enable  us 
/  to  understand  the  existence  and  behavior  of  the  totality  of 
particular  things. 

Before,  however,  we  pass  to  the  further  consideration  of 
this  truth  it  may  be  noticed  in  passing,  that  this  steady-going, 

1  Riehl,  "  Der  Philosophische  Kriticismns,"  II.  ii.  p.  302  f. 

2  Neue  Grundmittel  und  Erfindungen  zur  Analysis,  p.  88  f. 


MATTER  429 

and  relatively  unchangeable  character  of  matter,  as  respects  its 
mass,  is  a  shrewd  device  on  its  part  to  lay  in  strong  foun- 
dations the  building  of  an  intelligible  Cosmos.  It  would  be 
very  inconvenient,  to  say  the  least,  if  the  "  that-which  "  whose 
amounts  of  being  and  action  we  call  the  mass  of  matter, 
were  not  accustomed  to  maintain  a  reliable  status  toward  us, 
in  so  fundamental  relations  as  these. 

Modern  physics  is,  in  general,  agreed  further  to  define 
"  matter "  as  that  being  which  we  know  by  sense-perception 
and  which  comes  under  the  laws  of  physical  dynamics.  In 
this  it  accords  fairly  well  with  such  a  metaphysical  definition 
as  the  following : l  "  Matter  is  that  conception  of  the  Real,  as 
substrate  of  the  objective  representation  of  time,  which  is 
deduced  from  the  spatial  sensations  of  pressure  and  resist- 
ance, of  mobility  and  extension."  A  definition  which  may  be 
declared  to  afford  a  relative  contentment  to  the  naturalist  has 
been  summarized  in  the  following  sentence  :  "  Matter  is  that 
which  can  be  perceived  by  the  senses,  or  that  which  can  be 
acted  upon  by  or  can  exert  force"  (Thomson  and  Tait). 

It  is  unnecessary  to  analyze  and  discuss  in  detail  the  con- 
ception of  matter  which  corresponds  to  the  sentences  quoted 
above.  It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  conception 
comprises  —  or  rather  represents  as  an  alternative  —  two  sets 
of  characteristics  which  do  not  rest  upon  precisely  the  same 
grounds.  These  are,  first,  those  characteristics  of  material 
things  which  can  be  intuitively  discerned  by  sense-perception  ; 
and,  second,  a  primary  ability  of  material  things  to  play  a 
part,  so  to  speak,  in  a  system  of  interacting  agencies  whose 
existence  and  laws  make,  for  their  discovery  and  understand- 
ing, higher  demands  upon  the  observer's  thought.  But  both 
these  sets  of  characteristics  are  referred  by  the  very  language 
of  the  physicist's  definition  to  a  common  substrate,  or  ground. 
This  substrate,  or  ground,  is  hinted  at  by  a  device  which  we 
had  occasion  to  subject  to  critical  examination  in  an  earlier 

1  Riehl,  "  Der  Philosophische  Kriticismus,"  II.  i.  p.  275. 


430  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

part  of  our  work  (see  p.  116  f.).  It  is  dumbly  indicated  and 
mentioned  with  an  air  of  mysterious  agnosticism  as  though  it 
were  too  remote  from  or  too  high  above,  ordinary  experience 
to  receive  a  definite  name.  It  is  called  a  "  that-which."  Mat- 
ter is  "  that-which  "  can  be  perceived,  etc.  ;  or  "  that-which  " 
can  be  acted  upon,  etc.  But  the  alternative  indicated  by  the 
word  "  or "  which  is  introduced  into  the  definition  certainly 
does  not  mean  that  one  may  take  one's  choice  between  these 
as  two  mutually  exclusive  forms  of  conceiving  of  matter ;  for 
both  of  the  following  more  particular  characterizations  must 
be  held  as  necessary  attributes  of  this,  their  common  sub- 
strate. Matter  is  then,  by  the  naturalists  of  a  contented 
mind,  regarded  loth  as  that  real  being  which  becomes  known 
to  every  percipient  through  the  senses,  and  also  as  that  real 
being  which  is  known  to  physical  science  as  the  subject  of 
acting  and  reacting  forces.  On  the  one  hand,  however,  the 
scientific  conception  rests  upon  sense-perception  as  its  base ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  every  plain  man  knows  also  some- 
thing about  things  as  capable  of  being  acted  upon  by,  or  as 
exerting,  force. 

Now  it  is  at  once  apparent  to  the  critical  student  of  meta- 
physics that  even  this  minimum,  sun-clear  conception  of  mat- 
ter, becomes,  when  you  open  it,  a  perfect  Pandora's  box  for 
the  escape  of  those  same  categories  which  have  already  given 
us  so  much  trouble.  To  speak  of  a  "  that-which  "  as  the  sub- 
ject of  qualities,  as  the  terminal  point  of  issuing  and  entering 
forces,  as  the  being  that  can  make  every  man  perceive  it  when 
he  uses  his  senses,  is,  if  we  insist  upon  thoroughness  in  reflec- 
tive thinking,  only  to  introduce  the  same  obscure  ontological 
problem  which  metaphysics  has  long  striven  with  under  the 
concept  of  "  substantiality."  Then,  too,  the  physicist's  defini- 
tion insists  upon  the  truth  of  experience  that  matter  is  known 
as  somehow  the  "  cause  "  of  changes  in  our  perceptive  con- 
sciousness; moreover,  the  different  portions  of  matter  must 
be  regarded  as  interconnected  in  their  modes  of  behavior, 


MATTER 

because  they  "  exert  force  "  —  of  course,  upon  one  another  as 
parts  of  a  common  material  system.  This  aspect  of  this 
definition  at  once  introduces  us  to  the  conception  of  regular 
ways  of  fc4  being  acted  upon  by,"  and  of  "  exerting  "  force ;  but 
these  regular  ways  are  nothing  less  than  the  "  laws  "  of  the 
physical  universe,  or  of  matter.  The  most  ideal  of  the  cate- 
gories —  such  as  finality  —  is  now  not  far  ahead,  and  lying 
right  across  our  path. 

At  this  point,  however,  certain  vacillations  and  confusions 
of  current  physical  conceptions  need  to  be  made  the  subject 
of  remark.  For  some  physicists  have  been  accustomed  to 
speak  as  though  matter  could  exist  apart  from  energy ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  as  though  energy  were  a  sort  of  additional 
entity  which  could  operate  "  upon "  matter  from  without,  or 
could  be  distributed  "  among  "  different  portions  of  matter  in 
an  external  fashion.  "  Matter  and  energy  "  are  thus  treated 
as  a  pair  of  entities  whose  co-operation  is  necessary  in  order 
to  explain  the  being  and  the  transactions  of  things.  Matter 
and  energy  are  twins  ;  even  though  they  are  like  the  Siamese 
twins,  bound  together  inseparably  at  their  vital  parts.  On 
the  contrary,  the  modern  dynamic  and  evolutionary  view  of 
the  world,  in  connection  with  an  idealistic  metaphysics,  has 
recently  progressed  so  far  as  to  lead  some  physicists  to  make 
the  attempt  to  state  the  reality  of  matter  in  terms  of  space 
and  of  energy  only.  But  still  others  seem  inclined  to  regard 
Matter  as  the  wholly  unknown  Substrate  which  —  being  exist- 
ent per  se,  as  it  were  —  is  revealed  to  man  by  being  the  vehicle 
and  seat  of  varying  amounts  of  energy.  Thus  is  energy  con- 
ceived of  as  an  entity  that  is  somehow  not  essential  to  the 
very  being,  to  the  substantiality,  of  matter,  but  is  rather 
regarded  as  the  revealer  of  the  character  and  state,  for  the 
present  time,  of  some  particular  portion  of  matter.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how,  otherwise,  one  is  to  interpret  the  following  pas- 
sage from  Clerk  Maxwell : *  "  All  that  we  know  about  matter 

1  Matter  and  Motion,  p.  163  f. 


432  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

relates  to  the  series  of  phenomena  in  which  energy  is  trans- 
ferred from  one  portion  of  matter  to  another,  till  in  some  part 
of  the  series  our  bodies  are  affected,  and  we  become  conscious 
of  sensation. 

"By  the  mental  process  which  is  founded  on  such  sen- 
sations we  come  to  learn  the  conditions  of  these  sensations, 
and  to  trace  them  to  objects  which  are  not  part  of  our- 
selves, but  in  every  case  the  fact  that  we  learn  is  the  mutual 
action  between  bodies.  .  .  .  Under  various  aspects  it  is  called 
Force,  Action  and  Reaction,  and  Stress,  and  the  evidence  of 
it  is  the  change  of  the  motion  of  the  bodies  between  which 
it  acts. 

"  Hence,  as  we  have  said,  we  are  acquainted  with  matter 
only  as  that  which  may  have  energy  communicated  to  it  from 
other  matter,  and  which  may,  in  its  turn,  communicate  energy 
to  other  matter." 

The  current  physical  conception  of  matter  becomes  further 
oppressed  with  internal  difficulties  or  contradictions  when  we 
consider  that,  according  to  accepted  tenets  of  physics,  in- 
ertia is  a  primary  and  universal  characteristic  of  matter. 
This  characteristic,  as  commonly  defined,  seems  difficult  of  re- 
conciliation with  the  characteristic  possession  of  that  energy 
which,  being  received  or  being  parted  with,  physics  regards 
as  also  essential  to  the  very  nature  of  matter.  For  we  are 
told  that  by  inertia  is  meant  "  the  essential  incapacity  of 
matter  of  altering  the  state  into  which  it  is  put  by  an  external 
cause,  whether  that  state  be  rest  or  motion."  l  By  combining 
conceptions  of  inertia  and  mass,  we  reach  the  conclusion  that 
inertia  is  the  "  quantity  (or  mass)  of  matter  considered  as 
resisting  the  communication  of  motion."  Yet  again,  on  ex- 
pressing this  characteristic  of  inertia  in  terms  that  are  better 
suited  to  the  atomic  theory  of  the  constitution  of  matter,  it 
may  be  affirmed  that  "  the  incapacity  of  all  material  points  to 

i  See  Whewell's  " Mechanics"  (7ed.),  where  it  is  declared  (p.  9)  that  "matter 
is  originally  apprehended  by  its  resistance  to  the  action  of  force." 


MATTER  433 

put  themselves  in  movement,  or  to  change  the  movement 
which  has  been  communicated  to  them,  without  the  aid 
of  a  force,  is  what  is  understood  by  the  inertia  of  matter."  * 
Upon  Descartes'  notion  of  the  primary  property  of  matter  as 
announced  in  his  "  First  Law  of  Nature,"  —  namely,  that 
every  individual  thing  so  far  as  in  it  lies,  perseveres  in  the 
same  state,  whether  of  motion  or  of  rest,"  -  -  Clerk  Max- 
well 2  observes :  "  In  the  words, '  so  far  as  in  it  lies/  properly 
understood,  is  to  be  found  the  true  primary  definition  of 
matter,  and  the  true  measure  of  quantity."  This  need  of 
material  bodies  to  have  the  cause  of  their  changes  in  space 
lie  outside  of  themselves,  this  self-incapacity  (quantum  in  se 
esf)  to  move  when  at  rest,  or  to  come  to  rest  when  moving, 
is  emphasized  in  Maxwell's  own  declaration  that  we  "are 
acquainted  with  matter  only  as  that  which  may  have  energy 
communicated  to  it,"  etc.3 

The  foregoing  and  other  similar  attempts  to  combine  the 
physical  conceptions  of  inertia  and  of  energy  in  the  same 
substrate,  Matter,  are,  in  expression  if  not  in  thought,  unsatis- 
factory and  even  contradictory.  The  same  reality  cannot 
be  both  the  source  of  energy  as  thus  defined  and  also  the 
victim  of  inertia,  at  the  same  time.  If  by  the  term  "  matter  " 
modern  physics  means  to  designate  the  entire  system  of 
physical  things,  considered  as  operative  and  yet  irrespective 
of  its  genesis  and  its  relation  to  absolute  mind,  nothing  can 
be  further  from  its  own  accepted  principles  than  to  speak  of 
any  portion  of  matter  as  wholly  dependent  for  any  of  its 
changes  (from  motion  to  decreased  motion  and  rest,  or  from 
rest  to  motion)  upon  forces  external  to  itself.  Physics  neces- 
sarily assumes  the  sum-total  of  matter  as  already  in  motion, 
and  as  fully  equipped  with  the  completed  quantity,  and  with  all 
the  kinds  of  forces  necessary  to  do  its  ceaseless  work.  If, 

1  Compare  M.  Poisson,  "  Traite  de  Mecanique,"  IL,  p.  208  f. 

2  Matter  and  Motion,  p.  26  f. 
8  Ibid.,  p.  164  f. 

28 


434  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

however,  we  mean  to  consider  any  actual  portion  of  matter, 
any  material  thing,  no  matter  how  "  brute  and  inanimate  "  it 
seems,  such  portion  of  matter  can  never  properly  be  said  to 
be  dependent  for  its  changes  of  position,  its  acceleration  or 
decrease  of  motion,  or  its  internal  molecular  alterations,  wholly 
upon  forces  communicated  to  it  from  without.  Indeed,  if 
every  material  being  were  thus  burdened  with  inertia,  whence 
could  any  of  the  forces  that  produce  the  actual  changes  of 
things  be  derived  ?  A  collection  of  wholly  inert  bodies,  or  of 
bodies  that  —  so  to  speak — had  no  principles  of  change 
within  themselves,  could  never  constitute,  much  less  build  up, 
a  world  like  that  in  which  we  find  ourselves  existing.  This 
actual  world  of  experience,  with  which  physics  as  an  empirical 
science  deals,  contains  no  beings  that  are  completely  at  rest ; 
neither  does  it  show  us  beings  that  are  moving  in  mass,  or 
are  undergoing  internal  changes,  with  a  perfectly  uniform 
velocity.  Such  a  world  lies  only  in  the  theoretical  dream- 
land of  "pure  "  physics. 

And,  finally  on  this  point,  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind 
ourselves  again  that  all  the  language  of  scientific  physics 
about  the  "  communication"  of  forces  from  one  body  to  another, 
and  about  the  fct  transmission,"  or  the  "  distribution,"  or  the 
"  conservation  and  correlation  "  of  energy,  is  highly  figurative. 
Force,  we  have  decided,  is  not  an  entity  that  can  be  separated 
from  actual  things  and  made  to  rule  over  or  dwell  within 
them.  (Compare  chap.  X.) 

However  unfortunately  he  may  at  times  express  himself, 
the  thoughtful  physicist  is  not  unacquainted  with  the  truths 
which  have  just  been  restated  by  us.  One  of  the  authors 
already  quoted  (M.  Poisson),  in  defining  the  inertia  of  matter, 
says :  "  The  word  does  not  signify  that  matter  is  incapable  of 
action  ;  on  the  contrary  every  material  point  (sic)  at  all  times 
finds  the  principle  of  its  movement  in  the  action  of  other 
points,  but  never  in  itself."  Now,  in  the  unqualified  way  in 
which  this  statement  is  left  standing  by  its  author,  it  is 


MATTER  435 

untrue,  and  even  absurd.  It  can  be  made,  however,  to  express 
important  truths  if  it  is  qualified  so  as  to  read,  "  every 
material  body  always  finds  the  principle  of  its  movement 
(or,  rather,  change  in  the  rate  of  movement),  in  part,  in  the 
action  of  other  bodies  and  never  in  itself  alone."  Another 
writer  on  physics  (Clerk  Maxwell)  comes  nearer  than  is 
customary  with  himself  or  with  others  to  a  fortunate  state- 
ment of  the  complete  truth,  in  the  following  sentences : 
Force  is  "  but  one  aspect  of  that  mutual  action  between  two 
bodies  which  is  called  by  Newton  Action  and  Reaction,  and 
which  is  now  more  briefly  expressed  by  the  single  word 
4  Stress ' ; "  and  again  :  "  If  we  confine  our  attention  to  one 
of  the  portions  of  matter,  we  see,  as  it  were,  only  one  side 
of  the  transaction,  viz.,  that  which  affects  the  portion  of 
matter  under  our  consideration ;  and  we  call  this  aspect  of 
the  phenomenon,  with  reference  to  its  effect,  an  External 
Force  acting  on  that  portion  of  matter,  and  with  reference  to 
its  cause  we  call  it  the  Action  of  the  other  portion  of  matter."  L 
Let  now  our  reflective  thinking  return  to  the  actual  facts  of 
man's  cognitive  experience  with  things  as  real  and  concrete. 
For  physicists,  as  truly  if  not  as  unprofitably  as  metaphysicians, 
are  liable  to  be  too  much  captivated  by  mere  abstractions,  and 
by  the  prospect  of  rendering  their  science  "  pure  "  and  no 
longer  subject  to  its  proper  empirical  limitations.  These 
things,  which  man's  daily  use  of  his  senses  —  not  without 
thought  and  instinctive  metaphysics  contributing  to  his  cogni- 
tion—  makes  known  to  him,  are  manifold,  highly  differen- 
tiated qualitatively,  ceaselessly  active  in  changes,  whether 
regarded  as  masses  of  matter  or  as  constituted  of  separable 
molecules  and  atoms.  They  all  appear  in  existence,  either  as 
bearing  more  or  less  specialized  forms,  or  else  as  rapidly  un- 
dergoing evolution  by  processes  which  the  chemico-physical 
sciences  can  only  imperfectly  describe  and  can  scarcely  at  all 
explain.  Even  the  most  "  brute  and  inanimate  "  portions  of 

1  See  "Matter  and  Motion,"  p.  53  f. 


436  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

matter  have  their  specific  series  or  round  of  changes  defined  for 
them  under  the  influence  of  complicated  causes,  which  we,  in 
our  ignorance,  consider  as  belonging  to  the  "  nature"  of  things. 
Not  one  "  Thing  "  among  them  all  that  is  not  self-active  after 
its  own  nature,  or  kind  ;  not  one  of  them  that  is  not  also  de- 
pendent on  many  —  we  may  even  suspect,  upon  all  —  of  the 
others,  for  the  character  of  both  its  actions  and  its  reactions. 
And  this  present,  vast  and  incomprehensible  complexity  of 
habits,  both  of  suffering  from  inertia  and  of  showing  the  pos- 
session of  energy,  cannot  be  reduced  to  any  such  simplicity  of 
elementary  beings  and  conditions  as  does  not  virtually  contain 
within  itself  the  principles  necessary  to  explain  the  very  pres- 
ent complexity  from  which  all  efforts  to  explain  start  out. 

From  this  present  point  of  view,  then,  we  seem  compelled 
to  agree  with  Du  Bois-Reymond  in  his  declaration  that  "  sep- 
arately "  force  and  matter  do  not  exist ;  or,  in  the  words  of 
another  writer  (Gotta)  :  "  Nothing  in  the  world  justifies  us  in 
assuming  the  existence  per  se  of  forces,  independent  of  the 
bodies  from  which  they  proceed  and  upon  which  they  act." 
Further  critical  examination  shows,  however,  that  both  these 
expressions  are  framed  so  as  virtually  to  take  back  the  very 
truth  they  are  designed  to  assert.  If  forces  can,  in  reality, 
"  proceed  from "  one  body  and  "  act  upon "  another,  then 
forces  must  be  conceived  of  as  somehow  existent  per  se.  And 
strictly  speaking,  to  frame  any  physical  theory  in  terms  of 
force  and  matter,  is  to  assume  that  the  two  terms  employed 
represent  entities  which  may  at  least  be  conceived  of  as  exist- 
ing "  separately."  Nor  can  this  difficulty  be  escaped,  or  our 
statement  as  to  the  precise  terms  on  which  things  actually 
exist  and  operate  be  improved,  by  slurring  over  the  reality  of 
those  experiences  which  lead  the  mind  irresistibly  to  the  em- 
ployment of  both  conceptions  —  namely,  Matter  and  Force. 
For  instance,  we  can  neither  resolve  force  into  a  new  relation, 
into  "  any  circumstance  that  determines  motion,"  nor  can  we 
consider  matter  as  existent,  or  efficient,  if  it  be  not  per  se  pos- 


MATTER  437 

sessed  of,  and  in  the  actual  exercise  of,  what  physics  is  pleased 
to  call  energy  or  force. 

The  language  of  philosophy,  although  by  no  means  always 
sufficient  to  lead  us  at  once  into  clear  sunlight  for  these  physi- 
cal conceptions,  is  in  general  better  adapted  to  tell  that  truth 
which  physics  means  to  express.  Of  one  important  aspect  of 
this  truth,  the  statement  of  Lotze, l  although  not  altogether 
fortunate,  is  suggestive  :  "  Forces "  (as  taken  with  the  laws, 
which  are  said  to  govern,  or  express  the  formulas  of  the 
forces)  "  are  conditions  which  enable  one  thing  to  effect  an- 
other and  to  place  itself  to  that  other  in  different  relations." 
So  Professor  Watson :  2  "  The  true  definition  of  Force  is  to  be 
found  in  the  infinite  relations  between  material  things  which 
constitute  the  world  as  real"  Or,  to  quote  Mr.  Spencer's 
more  elaborate  conception :  "  Force,  as  we  know  it,  can  be 
regarded  only  as  a  certain  conditioned  effect  of  the  uncondi- 
tioned cause,  as  the  relative  reality  indicating  to  us  an  abso- 
lute reality  by  which  it  is  immediately  produced."  More 
compact,  nervy,  and  direct  is  the  expression  of  Mr.  Lewes :  3 
"  Force  is  the  dynamic  aspect  of  existence,  the  correlate  of 
Matter."  And  Professor  Bain  4  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that 
matter,  force,  and  inertia,  are  the  three  names  for  substantially 
the  same  fact  .  .  .  force  and  matter  not  two  things,  but  one 
thing.  "  Force,  inertia,  momentum,  matter,  are  all  one  fact."  6 

If  now  the  facts  and  truths  which  are  either  recognized  or 
implied  by  such  scientific  and  philosophical  tenets  as  the  fore- 
going are  examined  in  the  light  of  our  experience  with  things, 
we  are  forced  to  this  metaphysical  conclusion  :  TJie  being  of 
the  world  of  many  things  has  a  certain  unity  of  Substrate  or 
Ground ;  and  this  Substrate  or  Grround  is  permanent  amid  all 
the  changes  of  particular  things.  While  they  change  in  mani- 

1  See  his  "  Metaphysik,"  II.  v.  for  a  discussion  of  this  conception. 

2  Journal  of  Speculative  Philosophy,  XII.  p.  137. 
8  Problems  of  Life  and  Mind,  II.,  pp.  229  ff. 

*  Logic,  vol.  II.,  p.  225  f . 
6  Ibid.,  II.,  p.  389. 


438  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

fold  ways,  IT  (the  so-called  "  Matter  "  out  of  which  these  things 
are  composed)  changes  not  —  so  far  as  its  essential  character- 
istics are  concerned.  Among  the  essential  characteristics  of 
matter,  most  permanent  and  universal  are  those  which,  in 
abstract  terms,  are  defined  by  physics  as  mass,  and  inertia, 
and  action  and  interaction  caused  by  force.  Thus  is  recog- 
nized the  capacity  of  each  portion  of  matter  for  resistance 
to  unlimited  or  lawless  change ;  as  well  as  its  ability,  in 
accordance  with  a  variety  of  principles  which  admit  of  more 
particular  determination  by  experience  alone,  to  put  forth  of 
itself,  and  to  induce  in  other  portions  of  matter,  certain 
limited  and  "  principled  "  changes.  This  permanent  and  uni- 
versal Being  of  Things,  for  which,  when  considered  as  the 
subtrate  of  all  particular  physical  existences,  the  abstract  term 
"  matter "  is  employed,  will  not  change  unless  it  has  good 
reason  therefor.  It  asserts  its  persistence  as  so-called 
"inertia."  But  then,  on  the  other  hand,  IT  is  always  and 
everywhere  actually  in  a  process  of  change  ;  and  this  ceaseless 
change  is  because,  taken  as  a  whole,  "  matter "  is  an  enor- 
mous and  seemingly  exhaustless  store  of  energy,  which  is  — 
so  to  speak  —  constantly  being  distributed  and  redistributed 
among  the  infinite  number  of  particular  things. 

If,  then,  we  are  to  use  the  term  matter  as  an  abstraction 
which  shall  conveniently  summarize  all  those  permanent  and 
universal  characteristics  which  man's  experience  recognizes  as 
belonging  to  so-called  material  things,  we  must  recognize  this 
use  as  covering  far  more  than  the  term  covers  in  that  use  of 
it  to  which  physics  is  committed.  Matter,  regarded  as  a  Sub- 
trate having  its  essence  merely  as  a  measurable  quantity,  — 
"  brute  and  inanimate  "  but  bulking  so  much,  —  cannot  be  the 
stuff  out  of  which  actual,  concrete,  and  infinitely  variable 
things  are  made.  In  order  to  constitute  the  reality  of  all 
things,  Matter  must  not  only  be  acted  upon  by,  and  exert 
force  (or  rather  a  great  variety  of  forces  under  an  infinity  of 
changing  conditions),  but  it  must  also,  of  itself,  possess  these 


MATTER  439 

forces  ;  it  must  be,  per  se,  Force.  But  this  is,  as  the  analysis 
and  application  to  reality  of  the  conception  of  force  has 
already  shown  us,  to  be  a  Will.  Every  will,  as  each  man 
knows  it  in  his  own  case  and  in  the  cases  of  other  selves,  is  a 
self-active  being  that  acts,  however,  only  as  conditioned  by  the 
relations  which  it  sustains  to  other  beings,  and  yet  toward  the 
end  of  realizing  its  own  ideas.  Such,  too,  is  virtually  the  com- 
plex conception  which  we  apply  in  the  effort  to  understand,  as 
fully  as  possible,  the  real  being  and  the  actual  doings  of  every 
particular  Thing.  No  portion  of  matter  can  be  a  material 
thing,  however  much  we  may  depreciate  or  affect  to  despise 
its  materiality,  without  having  so  much  of  a  share  in  the 
World's  ideal  existence  and  ideal  aims  as  is  implied  in  all 
this. 

We  repeat  our  view  of  the  problem  of  material  Reality  — 
of  what  is  called  Matter  — as  seen  from  the  philosophical 
point  of  standing.  That  which  physics  designates  as  a  total- 
ity, or  rather  as  a  genuine  and  effective  unity  including  all 
material  things,  cannot  be  poorer  and  meaner  than  the  con- 
stitution of  the  poorest  and  meanest  being  which  it  is  meant 
to  include.  By  "  matter,"  considered  as  the  possessor  and 
user  of  all  the  force  that  distributes  and  differentiates  itself 
according  to  the  appropriate  relations  in  an  infinity  of  ideal 
ways,  and  that  thus  attains  a  marvellous  variety  of  ideal  ends, 
which  somehow,  in  spite  of  their  variety,  combine  into  the 
Unity  of  a  physical  Cosmos  —  by  this  substance  thus  described 
and  defined,  we  cannot  possibly  understand  mere  mass  of 
dead,  unideating,  "  stuff,"  moved  from  without  by  forces  ex- 
ternal to  itself.  But  what  must  be  covered,  either  by  this  or 
by  some  other  equivalent  term  ?  What  less  can  be  under- 
stood by  any  such  term  than  the  summing-up,  in  a  vital  and 
effective  way,  of  all  those  categories  that  characterize  the 
system  of  so-called  material,  or  physical  things  ?  But  these 
are  the  categories  which  have  been  shown  to  define  our  con- 
ception of  an  Absolute  Self. 


440  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

Physics,  then,  is  quite  at  liberty,  in  the  effort  for  a  better 
handling  of  its  complex  and  intricate  phenomena,  to  isolate 
certain  aspects  of  things ;  and  even  to  treat  the  abstractions 
thus  secured  as  though  they,  of  themselves,  stood  for  some- 
thing that  exists  alone,  and  acts  effectively  in  the  world  of 
reality.  But  when  physics  substitutes  any  of  these  abstrac- 
tions for  the  total  living  Reality,  or  when  it  combines  all  its 
favorite  abstractions  into  some  single  conception  and  makes 
use  of  the  result  to  dispense  with  the  recognition  of  the 
deeper  meaning  of  yet  more  fundamental  principles,  it  steps 
quite  out  of  its  safe  and  proper  path. 

Suppose,  then,  that  the  student  of  nature,  "  abandoning  all 
disguise "  and  "  prolonging  the  vision  backward  across  the 
boundary  of  experimental  evidence,"  discerns  in  "  that  matter 
which  we,  in  our  ignorance  and  notwithstanding  our  professed 
reverence  for  its  creator,  have  hitherto  covered  with  oppro- 
brium, the  promise  and  potency  of  every  form  and  quality  of 
life ; "  several  methods  are  open  to  the  dissenting  philoso- 
pher. Among  them  perhaps  there  is  none  better  than  that  of 
responding :  "  Whom  therefore  ye  ignorantly  worship,  him 
declare  I  unto  you."  For  this  declaration  of  the  physicist  is 
capable  of  being  understood  as  amounting  in  substance  to  the 
avowal  of  the  philosopher  Schelling : l  "  Matter  is  the  general 
seed-corn  of  the  universe,  wherein  everything  is  involved  that 
is  brought  forth  in  subsequent  evolutions."  And  have  we  not 
the  same  physicist's  2  word  for  it :  "  If  life  and  thought  be  the 
very  flower  of  matter  and  force,  any  definition  which  omits 
life  and  thought  must  be  inadequate,  if  not  untrue "  ?  But 
to  recognize  the  essential  qualifications  of  selfhood  as  belong 
ing  to  the  principle  to  which  the  existence  and  the  potency  of 
all  things,  even  of  living  things,  is  referred,  and  then  to 
ascribe  its  effects  to  an  abstraction  which  has  been  already 
denuded  of  the  most  essential,  persistent,  and  illumining  of 

1  Ideen  zu  einer  Philosophie  der  Natur,  p.  315. 

2  See  Tyndall's  "Fragments  of  Science  "  :  "  Musings  on  the  Matterhorn." 


MATTER  441 

these  qualifications,  is  to  play  fast  and  loose  with  language, 
and  with  the  processes  of  thinking  which  make  language 
intelligible.  Of  course,  that  can  be  got  out  of  any  group  of 
conceptions  which  you  begin  by  putting  into  the  same  group. 
But  if  the  particular  group  which  your  theory  means  to  have 
do  the  work  of  explaining  the  being  and  transactions  of  all 
material  things  is  to  accomplish  its  heavy  task,  IT  must 
possess  all  the  essential  characteristics  of  these  things,  con- 
sidered in  their  genesis,  their  mutual  relations  within  the 
unity  of  an  ideal  system,  and  their  development.  And  this 
is  to  possess  the  essential  characteristics  of  an  Absolute  Self.1 
That  the  conception  which  physical  science  includes  under 
the  word  matter,  even  when  it  involves  such  a  wide  group- 
ing of  effective  characteristics  as  has  already  been  discussed, 
does  not  suffice  to  account  for  the  constitution,  the  behavior, 
and  the  development  of  material  things,  is  confessed  by  the 
very  terms  of  the  current  atomic  theory.  The  known  world 
of  material  things  is  much  too  varied  and  changeable  in  its 
forms  to  be  understood  without  resort  to  further  principles 
of  differentiation.  How  to  account  for  its  infinite  variety  in 
terms  of  unifying  conceptions  —  this  is  the  problem  for  sci- 
ence and  philosophy  alike.  Space,  Time,  and  Causation, 
when  employed  as  abstractions  by  philosophy  will  not  accom- 
plish this  task.  But  neither  will  Mass,  Energy,  Action  and 
Reaction,  and  other  similar  abstractions  of  physics.  The 
real  world,  try  as  we  may  to  overlook  or  confuse  the  fact,  is- 
based  upon  an  infinity  of  distinctions.  If  matter  is  the  one 
womb  from  which  all  material  things  proceed,  still  the  par- 
ticular character,  the  individual  preferences  and  startlingly 
unique  performances  of  her  children  are  no  less  observable. 
Hence  the  need  of  some  attempt  to  lay  the  foundations  of  our 
theory  of  reality  in  a  larger  variety  of  qualitatively  different 

1  This  curious  sentence  from  Bacon  is  illustrative  of  the  truth  we  are  enforc- 
ing :  "  Atque  asserenda  materia  (qualiscumque  en  est)  ita  ornata  et  apparata  et 
formata,  ut  oranis  virtus,  essentia,  actus  atque  motus  naturalis  ejus  consecutio 
et  emanatio  esse  possit." 


442  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

principles  than  those  which  the  so-called  "  pure  science  "  of 
physics  affords. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  the  student  of  metaphysics  to 
attempt  in  detail  to  expound  the  nature,  or  to  trace  the  his- 
tory, of  modern  chemistry.  Neither  is  the  student  of  meta- 
physics called  upon  to  arbitrate  any  strife  which  may  arise 
between  chemistry  and  physics  over  the  question  as  to  which 
of  the  two  is  destined  ultimately  to  absorb  the  other.  For- 
tunately, too,  the  chemists  themselves  may  safely  be  left  to 
investigate  further  the  nature  and  the  relations  of  those 
hypothetical  entities  to  whose  existence  and  potencies  their 
science  refers  the  constitution  and  the  behavior  of  all  material 
things.  Only,  where  there  is  confusion  now  philosophy  may 
ask  for  clearness  —  to  be  obtained  within  reasonable  time. 
And  where  fundamental  metaphysical  conceptions  are  at 
stake,  philosophy  must  assume  the  part  of  critic,  and  even 
of  guide  and  arbiter,  for  the  students  of  botli  these  positive 
sciences. 

Upon  any  hypothesis  which  renders  the  atomic  theory 
purely  dynamical  and  mathematical,  and  which  regards  the 
atom  as  merely  the  unextended  centre  of  forces  of  attraction 
and  repulsion,  metaphysics  has  something  decisive  to  say. 
This  view,  as  held  by  Faraday  and  stated  by  Tyndall,1  endeav- 
ors to  substitute  the  abstract  conception  of  the  infinite  divisibil- 
ity of  space  for  those  elemental  realities  which  result  from 
the  exceedingly  minute  but  actual  subdivisions  of  material 
things.  And  it  bases  this  attempt  upon  assumed  inability  of 
the  imagination,  —  as  is  shown  by  the  following  series  of  ques- 
tions :  "  What  do  we  know  of  the  atom  apart  from  its  force  ? 
You  imagine  a  nucleus  which  may  be  called  «,  and  surround 
it  by  forces  which  may  be  called  m ;  to  my  mind  the  a,  or  nu- 
cleus, vanishes  and  the  substance  consists  of  the  powers  of  m. 
And  indeed  what  notion  can  we  form  of  the  nucleus  independ- 
ent of  its  powers  ?  What  thought  remains  on  which  to  hang 

1  See  "Faraday  as  a  Discoverer,"  Am.  ed.  p.  123. 


MATTER  443 

the  imagination  of  an  a  independent  of  the  acknowledged 
forces  ?  "  Now,  all  this  is  one  of  the  most  facile  and  cheap, 
as  well  as  most  fallacious,  forms  of  the  argumentum  ab  difficul- 
tate  imaginations.  It  may  itself  be  employed  with  most 
destructive  effect  against  any  attempt  to  substitute  mere 
centres  of  force  for  exceedingly  small  subdivisions  of  material 
substance.  To  the  questions  just  quoted  one  may  respond 
with  questions  which  throw  equal  doubt  upon  the  reality  of 
the  forces  that  "  surround  "  the  atom.  How  is  imagination 
to  depict  these  forces  as  independent  entities  that  pull  and 
push  from  their  purely  fictitious  and  unreal  seats  at  calculable 
points  in  space.  But  when  both  nucleus  a  and  surrounding 
forces  m  have  vanished  because  they  are  equally  inconceiv- 
able by  the  imagination,  what  remains  of  the  atom  xf  Its 
problem  is,  indeed,  solved  for  it ;  but  the  solution  is  the  total 
dissolution  of  all  the  atom's  claim  to  a  place  in  reality.  In 
a  word,  x  has  lost  itself  by  losing  both  its  a  and  its  m. 

What  is  the  value  to  our  cognitive  experience,  and  what  is 
allowed  and  confirmed  by  a  critical  metaphysics,  when  we 
speak  of  the  atom  as  a  constituent  of  material  things  has 
already  been  made  sufficiently  clear.  For  the  atom,  or 
element  of  all  material  things,  its  "substantiality"  and  its 
"energy,"  guided  by  ideal  considerations  to  ideal  ends,  mean 
precisely  as  much  as,  and  no  more  than,  is  meant  by  applying 
the  same  metaphysical  conceptions  to  those  material  things 
which  are  said  to  be  composed  of  atoms.  Really  to  be,  and 
to  be  a  centre  of  forces,  is  no  more  or  less  difficult  or  myste- 
rious for  little  beings  than  for  big  beings.  Size  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  the  understanding  or  the  validating  of 
these  categories. 

If,  then,  the  science  of  chemistry  wishes  to  maintain  the 
atomic  theory  in  the  presence  of  a  critical  metaphysics,  it 
must  regard  its  atoms  in  somewhat  the  following  way. 
"  Atoms  "  are  those  hypothetical  elements  of  material  things 
which  it  seems  fitting,  and  which  it  may  become  necessary  to 


444  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

assume  as  originally  endowed  with  all  those  characteristics 
that  are  found  indispensable  to  an  explanation  of  our  matter- 
of-fact  experience  with  such  things.  In  its  own  language  its 
theory  is  of  the  following  order:  "Atoms  are  not  material 
points;  they  possess  a  sensible"  (better,  an  appreciable) 
"  dimension  and  doubtless  a  fixed  form ;  they  differ  in  their 
relative  weights  and  in  the  motions  with  which  they  are  ani- 
mated. They  are  indivisible  and  indestructible  by  physical 
and  chemical  forces,  for  which  they  act  in  some  manner  as 
points  of  application.  The  diversity  of  matter  results  from 
primordial  differences,  perpetually  existing  in  the  very  essence 
of  these  atoms  and  in  the  qualities  which  are  the  manifesta- 
tion of  them. 

"  Atoms  attract  each  other,  and  this  atomic  attraction  is 
affinity.  It  is  doubtless  a  form  of  universal  attraction,  but 
the  former  differs  from  the  latter  in  that  it  is  not  obedient 
to  the  influence  of  mass ;  it  depends  on  the  quality  of  the 
atoms.  Affinity  is  elective,  as  has  been  said  for  a  hundred 
years." 1 

Further  discussions  as  to  the  physical  qualities  and  the 
possible  internal  constitution  of  the  different  species  of  atoms 
do  not  essentially  change  their  metaphysical  value  or  their 
application  to  the  explanation  of  human  experience  with 
material  things.  Among  such  discussions  are  those,  for 
example,  over  the  following  questions:  Are  the  atoms  to  be 
conceived  of  as  hard,  perfectly  incompressible  and  inelastic 
bodies,  with  a  quite  rigid  shape  (not  necessarily  a  "fixed 
form ") ;  or  are  they  elastic,  of  quasi-fluid  structure,  and 
capable  of  assuming  a  variety  of  shapes,  and  of  rapidly 
changing  their  internal  constitution  ?  Now,  nothing  can  be 
more  "  plump  "  than  the  contradictions  in  the  statements  of 
different  authorities  on  some  of  these  points.  According  to 
one  writer,2  "  the  concept  <  elastic  atom '  is  a  contradiction  in 

1  From  Wurtz,  "  The  Atomic  Theory,"  p.  308. 

2  Prof.  Wittwer,  in  "  Schlomilch's  Zeitschrift  fur  Math,  und  Phys."  vol.  xv. 
p.  11 


MATTER  445 

terms,  because  elasticity  always  presupposes  other  parts  the 
distances  between  which  can  be  increased  or  diminished." 
"  But,  on  the  contrary,"  says  Sir  Win.  Thomson,"  we  are  for- 
bidden by  the  modern  theory  of  the  conservation  of  energy 
to  assume  inelasticity  of  the  ultimate  molecules,  whether  of 
ultra-mundane  or  mundane  matter."1  Thus  atoms  are  really 
to  be  conceived  of  as  "  the  rotating  parts  of  an  inert,  perfect 
fluid,  which  fills  all  space,  but  which  is,  when  not  rotating, 
absolutely  unperceived  by  our  senses."  "  A  vortex  filament, 
in  a  perfect  fluid,  is  a  true  '  atom,'  but  it  is  not  hard  like  those 
of  Lucretius ;  it  cannot  be  cut,  because  it  necessarily  wriggles 
out  from  under  the  knife."  2 

Such  a  conflict  between  the  geometrical  and  the  dynamical 
forms  of  the  atomic  theory  can,  as  Wundt  has  declared,  be 
settled  only  by  extending  the  limits  of  our  experience.  Nor 
is  it  unlikely  that  it  never  can  be  settled  at  all.  "  God  only 
knows,"  what  the  true  nature  of  the  atom  really  is ;  and 
perhaps  He  knows  that  it  is,  even  in  its  most  elaborate 
modern  form,  a  lame  and  inadequate  attempt  to  solve  the 
great  problem  of  our  experience  with  a  World  which  has  in 
it  such  an  infinite  variety  of  differently  qualified  and  yet 
mutually  interacting  and  rationally  connected  things ;  and 
which,  therefore,  we  somehow  feel  ourselves  compelled  to 
consider  as,  after  all,  only  One. 

We  must,  however,  at  this  point  protest  in  the  interests  of 
intellectual  honesty  and  of  the  principle  of  sufficient  reason, 
against  all  attempts  to  break  down  the  testimony  of  qualita- 
tive chemistry  ;  —  against  that  merely  physical  atomism,  which 
claims  to  derive  the  qualitative  properties  of  matter  solely 
from  the  forms  of  atomic  motion.  Should  this  attempt  suc- 
ceed, it  would  not  simplify  our  cognitions,  or  our  theory  of 
reality,  in  the  least.  An  irreducible  variety  in  the  modes 

1  Comp.  a  concluding  Article  by  A.  Fresnel,  on  the  law  of  elasticity  as  applied 
to  the  ultimate  particles  of  the  ether,  Poggendorffs  Annal.,  vol.  xcix.  p.  494  ff. 

2  G.  P.  Tait,  "  Properties  of  Matter,"  pp.  13,  19  f.     Comp.   Wurtz,   "The 
Atomic  Theory,"  p.  327  f. 


446  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

of  the  motion  of  an  atom,  that  is  of  one  kind  so  far  as 
its  physical  characteristics  are  concerned,  would  be  no  easier 
to  comprehend  as  an  explanatory  principle,  than  is  a  large 
original  variety  in  the  kinds  of  atoms.  Indefinite  variety  in  the 
so-called  "  natures "  and  the  performances  of  things,  and  a 
sort  of  unity  to  the  one  "  Nature  "  which  they  combine  to 
constitute,  are  both  facts  of  our  cognitive  experience.  And 
if  we  combine  into  one  grouping  of  our  conceptions  the 
characteristics  which  are  sufficient  to  account  for  both  such 
facts,  we  have  the  same  iudescribable  wealth  to  the  content  of 
the  result,  whether  it  be  called  a  physical  or  a  chemical 
hypothesis  of  matter. 

Considerations  like  those  just  discussed  have  led  a  recent 
writer l  to  maintain,  "  Not  only  do  the  atoms  seem  instinct 
with  a  desire  for  life,  and  the  inorganic  ever  show  a  tendency 
to  run  into  the  organic,  but  each  atom  is  a  life ;  and  life  in 
its  rudiment  is  a  property  of  all  matter."  But  the  same 
writer  goes  on  to  say  :  "  The  life  principle,  varying  only  in. 
degree,  is  omnipresent.  There  is  but  one  indivisible  and 
absolute  Omniscience  and  Intelligence,  and  this  thrills  through 
every  atom  of  the  whole  Cosmos.  .  .  .  This  may  be  called  the 
poet's  view,  but  it  is  forced  upon  us  as  the  highest  general- 
ization of  modern  science."  Such  utterances,  however,, 
whether  they  come  from  the  poet  or  from  the  man  of  science, 
have  plainly  raised  the  ordinary  conception  of  physics  and 
chemistry  to  a  far  higher  sphere  of  application.  We  shall 
therefore  return  to  this  conception  again  under  the  terms 
Nature  and  Spirit. 

The  properties  of  so-called  matter,  whether  conceived 
of  in  physical  terms  such  as  "mass,"  "energy,"  "inertia," 
"  action  and  reaction,"  etc.,  or  in  chemical  terms  that  de- 
scribe some  seventy  different  kinds  of  elements,  and  an 
indefinite  variety  of  their  combinations  and  separations  under 

1  Quoted  from  an  article  on  "The  Joys  and  Sorrows  of  the  Atom,"  by  Dr. 
G.  E.  Bailey.  The  Humanitarian,  London,  Oct.  1898. 


MATTER  447 

laws  of  elective  affinity,  are  becoming  more  mysterious  and 
amazing  as  man's  study  of  individual  things  becomes  more 
minute  and  more  profound.  Modern  science  has  rendered 
nature,  not  less  but  far  more  mysterious  and  incomprehen- 
sible from  the  merely  physico-chemical  point  of  view.  It  is 
not  my  mind,  with  its  sensation,  feeling,  thinking,  willing, 
that  is  for  itself  most  fundamentally  mysterious.  It  is  not 
psychology  which  is  chiefly  breaking  down  with  its  ancient 
conceptions  and  its  alleged  explanations.  It  is  what  we  are 
pleased  to  call  "  matter "  that  constitutes  the  all-engulfing 
mystery.  It  is  physics  and  chemistry  and  biology  which 
are  put  to  the  stretch  to  make  their  understandings  keep  pace 
with  their  observations  and  their  discoveries  of  facts. 

Indeed,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  maintain  that  the  physico- 
chemical  conception  of  matter  —  in  the  old-fashioned  form 
of  this  conception  —  will  begin  to  cover  man's  enlarging 
experiences  with  the  system  of  non-selves,  with  the  world 
of  things.  Old-fashioned  matter,  even  when  dressed  out 
with  newly  discovered  physical  and  chemical  clothing,  is  no 
longer  an  all-sufficient  entity.  A  new  claimant  for  our 
astonished  devotion  has  already  appeared.  An  entity  called 
"  ether "  must  also  be  invoked  by  the  pious  devotee  of  the 
realism  of  the  modern  physical  and  chemical  sciences. 
And  how  intoxicating  to  the  brain  of  the  enthusiastic  wor- 
shipper is  this  new  entity ! 

Although  the  conception  of  "  ordinary  matter,"  formerly 
regarded  as  "  brute  and  inanimate,"  has  been  enriched  and 
enlivened  so  as  to  make  it  unrecognizable,  there  still  seems 
need  of  other  properties  and  potencies  to  be  ascribed  to  the 
universal  Substrate.  Things  —  that  is  to  say  —  are  so  numer- 
ous, so  variable,  so  seemingly  capricious,  so  profoundly  myste- 
rious in  their  origins,  qualities,  and  ways  of  behavior  and  of 
development,  that  "  matter  "  and  "  ether  "  must  form  a  joint 
stock  partnership  to  own  them  all.  In  general  the  more 
simple  the  constitution  of  your  universal  substrate  becomes, 


448  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

the  more  complicated  become  the  explanations,  whose  entire 
weight  must  be  thrown  upon  the  forces,  motions,  and  laws 
of  this  substrate.  But  even  the  boundless  imagination  de- 
manded by  the  discoveries  of  modern  chemistry  and  modern 
molecular  physics  does  not  appear  to  suffice,  if  it  be  allowed 
only  one  subject,  or  permanent  and  unchanging  base.  Ether 
is  introduced  as  a  new  Being  of  things,  because  matter  can- 
not endure  such  strain.  A  single  proprietor  will  no  longer 
do  ;  a  syndicate  of  Matter,  Force,  and  Ether  must  control  the 
"  output  "  of  the  World. 

Now,  we  have  already  said  that  the  most  fundamental  and 
unchangeable  characteristic  of  "  ordinary "  matter  is  its 
mass.  But,  perhaps,  ether  has  no  appreciable  mass,  or  even 
no  mass  at  all.  Is  it  then  no  matter  ?  or,  is  ether  a  new, 
strange  kind  of  matter  which  has  somehow  managed  to 
dispense  with  the  most  important  characteristic  of  its  com- 
panion substrate  of  all  physical  phenomena  ?  Shall  we  then 
call  it  entity,  or  energy,  or  spirit,  —  if  it  be  not  matter  ? 
How  does  ether  manage  to  unite  in  itself  such  wonderful, 
contrary  characteristics  as  an  almost,  if  not  quite  imponder- 
able tenuity  and  an  enormous  elasticity  ?  How  does  ether 
manage  to  correlate  itself  so  completely  with  matter  as  to 
preserve  the  principle  of  the  conservation  of  energy  between 
the  moving  masses  or  molecules  of  matter  and  the  ethereal 
energy  of  light,  electricity,  and  magnetism  ?  Is  its  constitution 
that  of  a  fluid  continuum ;  or  is  ether,  too,  composed  of  atoms  ? 
If  its  atomic  structure  be  denied,  we  may  go  on  to  ask,  in  the 
name  of  Professor  Tyndall,  whether  the  "  imagination  will 
accept  a  vibrating  multiple  proportion  —  a  numerical  ratio  in 
a  state  of  oscillation."  To  this  question  we  may  give,  or  not, 
his  answer :  "  The  scientific  imagination  demands  as  the  ori- 
gin and  cause  of  a  .series  of  ether  waves  a  particle  of  vibrat- 
ing matter  quite  as  definite,  though  it  may  be  excessively 
minute, 'as  that  which  gives  origin  to  a  musical  sound." ] 

1  See  "Fragments  of  Science  "  (Am.  ed.),  p.  431. 


MATTER  449 

Small  wonder,  if  its  most  intimate  friends  should  now  feel 
obliged  to  address  it  in  terms  similar  to  those  in  which  Faust 
spoke  of  that  Unknowable  One  whom  men  ignorantly  worship 
as  God. 

"  Who  dares  express  him  ? 

The  All-enf older,  T' 
The  All-upholder, 
Enfolds,  upholds  He  not 
Thee,  me,  Himself?" 

With  the  scientific  answers  which  will  be  given  to  these 
questions  by  the  improved  physico-chemical  theory  of  the 
world,  metaphysics  is,  of  course,  interested,  but  not  at  all 
vitally  concerned.  It  can  only  discover  under  the  term 
"  ether,"  a  repetition  and  new  grouping  of  the  same  con- 
ceptions as  those  with  which  the  discussion  of  the  categories 
has  already  made  us  familiar.  Matter  and  ether,  or  ethereal 
matter,  or  material  ether,  it  matters  not  which.  The  Ground 
of  the  World  of  things  with  which  man's  growing  cognitive 
experience  makes  him  familiar  must  include  all  the  neces- 
sary principles  of  change,  differentiation,  and  development, 
as  well  as  of  that  persistency  in  bulk  and  in  energy  on  which 
scientific  physics  is  wont  to  build.  If  science  continues 
to  use  the  term  matter  to  group  together  all  these  concep- 
tions, it  must  at  the  worst  be  intelligently  honest  in  recog- 
nizing what  it  has  done.  It  has  thus  only  made  the  Substrate 
of  material  things  more  and  more  completely  Self-like.  It  has 
thus  only  equipped  this  common  substrate  with  more  and  more 
of  spiritual  properties.  It  has  thus  only  indulged  to  greater 
lengths,  and  in  higher  regions,  although  in  the  name  of 
science,  the  mind's  necessary  tendency,  or  rather,  its  instinc- 
tive and  inevitable  necessity  to  be  "  anthropomorphic."  And 
finally,  we  may  end  by  deifying  Matter.  In  this  way  the 
intellectual  processes  pursued  and  the  end  attained  are 
largely  similar ;  the  practical  and  emotional  effects  may  be 

29 


450  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

almost  identical;  but  the  word  which  marks  the  final  sta- 
dium is  certainly  not  so  appropriate,  or  so  rational,  as  the 
old-fashioned  word,  God. 

An  enthusiastic  advocate 1  of  the  all-sufficient  reality  of 
that  complex  abstraction  which  has  been  discussed  in  this 
chapter  maintains  that,  in  very  truth  matter  is  not  the 
"  empty  thing,"  the  collection  of  "negative  attributes,"  which 
it  is  customarily  supposed  to  be.  Instead  of  being  dead,  it  is 
"  full  of  most  active  life  ; "  instead  of  being  shapeless,  form 
is  its  "  inseparable  attribute ; "  instead  of  being  crude,  it  is 
"  infinitely  delicate  "  (not  simply,  it  would  seem,  in  a  quanti- 
tative way,  but  a3sthetically  so)  ;  instead  of  being  worthless, 
it  is  "  of  the  highest  importance  "  (naturally  enough,  since  IT 
includes  everything  worthiest  as  well  as  most  worthless)  ; 
instead  of  being  senseless,  spiritless,  or  thoughtless,  it  is 
"  capable  of  the  highest  evolution  of  thought,"  etc.  All  this 
is  IT.  And  we  will  call  it  "  Matter ; "  and  the  song  to  be 
sung  in  its  praise  shall  be  :  — 

"  1st  dem  nicht,  was  ihr  Materie  nennt, 
Der  Welt  urkraftig  Element, 
Aus  dem,  was  immer  lebt  und  webt, 
Empor  zu  Liclit  und  Bewegung  strebt  ?  " 

In  the  Second  Book  of  that  strange  mystical  writing,  Pistis 
Sop.hia,  "  Andrew  questioneth  Jesus  how  men  in  bodies  of 
matter  can  inherit  the  kingdom  of  light."  The  reply  he 
obtained  is  as  follows  :  "  Know  ye  not,  and  do  ye  not  under- 
stand that  ye  are  all  angels,  all  archangels,  gods  and  lords, 
all  rulers,  all  the  great  invisibles,  all  those  of  the  midst, 
those  of  every  region  of  them  that  are  on  the  right,  all  the 
great  ones  of  the  emanations  of  the  light  with  all  their  glory  ; 
that  ye  are  all,  of  yourselves  and  in  yourselves  in  turn,  from 
one  mass,  and  one  matter  and  one  substance  ?  Ye  are  all  from 
the  same  mixture." 

He  who  understands  this  mystery,  we  are  assured  by  Pistis 

1  See  Biichner,  "Force  and  Matter"  (Eng.  trans.), p.  55. 


MATTER  451 

Sophia,  understands  all  mysteries.  "  That  mystery  knoweth 
why  the  twelve  immovables  rent  themselves  asunder,  and 
why  they  were  established  with  all  their  orders,  and  why 
they  emanated  from  the  parentless. 

"  That  mystery  knoweth  why  the  super-depths  rent  them- 
selves asunder,  and  why  they  set  themselves  in  one  order, 
and  why  they  emanated  from  the  parentless. 

"  That  mystery  knoweth  why  all  the  indestructibles  in  their 
twelve  orders  rent  themselves  asunder,  and  why  they  were 
set  in  a  single  order,  emanating  one  after  the  other,  and  why 
they  were  divided  and  formed  separate  orders,  being  also 
uncontainable  impassables,  and  why  they  emanated  from  the 
parentless." 

Extremes  meet ;  and,  not  infrequently  we  find  the  expla- 
nation of  the  world  offered  by  the  theory  of  a  non-spiritual 
and  impersonal  Substance  differing  in  its  metaphysics  in  no 
fundamental  way  from  that  offered  by  the  most  extravagant 
declaration  of  religious  Gnosticism.  But,  as  Lotze  has  well 
reminded  us,  it  is  not  the  business  of  philosophy  to  construct 
the  world  but  to  understand  it,  as  it  is  given  to  us  in  our  actual 
experience.  And  neither  the  device  of  a  self-differentiating 
Matter  that  has  no  Spiritual  Being,  as  its  very  essence,  so  to 
speak,  nor  the  abstraction  of  an  unrelated  and  wholly  uncog- 
nizable  Deity  will  serve  either  science  or  philosophy  as  a 
satisfactory  principle  of  explanation.  But  the  defects  of  both 
will  become  even  more  obvious  as  we  pass  on  to  the  consider- 
ations of  the  next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

NATURE   AND   SPIRIT 

WHEN  the  attempt  is  made  to  explain  the  totality  of  man's 
experience  with  the  world  of  things,  there  are  two  kinds  of 
this  experience  which  make  the  word  "  Matter "  seem  es- 
pecially inappropriate  to  summarize  the  required  explanatory 
principles.  These  two  comprise  all  that  we  are  accustomed 
to  group  together  under  the  terms,  Life  and  History.  Both 
of  these  terms  are  somewhat  vague  in  their  content ;  and  they 
are  undoubtedly  meant  to  be  comprehensive  in  respect  of  the 
ranges  of  knowledge  and  conjecture  over  which  they  extend. 
Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that,  however  much  we  may  capi- 
talize, emphasize,  and  personify  them,  the  terms  remain,  after 
all,  abstractions  —  themselves  composed  of  many  less  highly 
abstract  conceptions,  that  serve,  each  one,  to  cover  a  large 
field  of  phenomena. 

Neither  Life  nor  History  can,  strictly  speaking,  effect  or 
explain  anything.  In  this  respect  they  are  like  the  terms 
Being,  Force,  Law,  etc.  It  is  only  when  "  Being "  is  no 
longer  pure,  or  mere  concept  of  existence,  but  is  recognized 
as  a  particular  self-active  will,  sustaining  manifold  ideal  rela- 
tions of  reciprocal  dependence  to  other  wills,  that  we  recog- 
nize the  presence,  in  concrete  form,  of  actual  existence.  So, 
too,  is  it  only  as  Force  is  an  active  relationship,  whose  uni- 
versal type  is  the  forth-putting  of  this  same  being  which  is 
consciously  known  to  the  Self  as  its  own  will,  that  the  differ- 
ent forms  of  so-called  force  accomplish  or  account  for  any- 
thing in  reality.  Thus  the  conception  of  a  "  unity  of  forces  " 


NATURE  AND  SPIRIT  453 

becomes  identical  with  that  of  a  principle  which  controls,  and 
makes  systematic  by  directing  toward  adopted  ends,  an  in- 
definite number  of  such  active  relationships.  In  like  manner, 
to  explain  the  phenomena  of  life  and  of  history,  we  must 
appeal  to  realities  that  have  the  capacity  of  entering  into  all 
the  active  relationships  which  it  is  intended  to  cover  by  these 
terms. 

There  are  good  reasons,  therefore,  why  there  has  always 
been  hesitation  before  the  claim  that  "  Matter  "  —  of  itself,  as 
it  were  —  can  live  and  undergo  an  historical  development. 
The  real  Being  which  effects  the  purposes  of  a  World-Ground, 
must  include  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  offered  to 
observation  by  the  system  of  living  beings,  and  by  the  devel- 
opment of  living  beings  through  a  complication  of  reactions, 
one  upon  another  and  on  the  basis  of  their  physical  environ- 
ment during  countless  ages  of  time.  Let  it  be  granted,  then, 
that  matter  seems  to  be  a  good  term  —  even  mere  matter,  or 
" brute,  inanimate  matter"  —  to  summarize  the  forces  and 
laws  needed  for  the  physical  composition  and  behavior  of  the 
planets,  and  for  the  combination  and  separation  of  molecules 
and  atoms  under  the  laws  of  cohesion  and  chemical  affinity. 
But  the  phenomena  which  men  group  together  under  the 
words,  life  and  history,  appear  —  at  least  at  first  —  of  too 
complicated  order,  and  mysterious  genesis,  and  uncertain 
character,  to  be  assigned  to  this  lower  principle  alone.  And 
yet  these  phenomena  cannot  be  separated  from  their  relation 
to  the  phenomena  with  which  physics  and  chemistry  deal. 
The  world  is  one,  we  are  continually  reminded,  in  some  valid 
and  suggestive  meaning  of  the  conception  of  unity.  Living 
beings,  from  those  lowest  forms  which  it  requires  refined 
instrumentation  to  distinguish  from  "  brute,  inanimate  mat- 
ter," to  the  highest  and  most  spiritual  of  human  forms,  are 
themselves  composed  of  material  elements.  Their  thermo- 
dynamics, and  the  electrical  and  magnetic  doctrines  of  their 
behavior,  are  not  essentially  different  from  the  physical  science 


454  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

of  all  material  masses  and  molecules.  Physiological  chemistry 
is  still,  in  good  faith  and  in  the  full  meaning  of  the  word,  a 
branch  of  chemical  science.  And  doubtless  the  protagon  in 
the  brain  of  Aristotle  or  of  the  Apostle  Paul  would  have  ana- 
lyzed into  something  like  C160  H308  N5  P  035. 

There  is,  then,  a  depth  of  mystery  in  the  constitution  and 
behavior  of  living  things,  and  a  significance  of  tendencies, 
drifts,  and  strivings  toward  some  far-off  goal,  in  the  history 
of  living  beings  and,  especially,  of  human  beings,  which  makes 
the  boldest  advocate  of  the  sufficiency  of  physical  substances 
and  forces  inclined  to  seek  another  term  for  his  enlarging 
conceptions.  Such  search  is  rewarded,  with  at  least  a  tem- 
porary satisfaction,  by  adopting  certain  uses  of  the  word 
"  Nature."  This  word  stands  better  for  that  which  has  life  in 
itself.  And  when  the  term  is  endowed  with  a  sufficiency  of 
at  least  quasi-personal  attributes,  and  spelled  with  a  capital 
letter,  it  inflames  and  elevates  the  imagination,  and  soothes 
the  remonstrances  which  a  philosophy  that  ends  in  pure  ab- 
stractions, or  in  merely  figurate  conceptions,  is  apt  to  call 
forth.  Our  "dame  Nature"  —  beldame,  in  both  the  older 
and  the  newer  meaning  of  this  compound  —  may  even  be- 
times be  called  good ;  although  she  is  always  in  fact  "  red 
in  tooth  and  claw."  Nature  is  thus  manifestly  conceived  of 
as  having  the  constitution  of  a  Self  ;  but  why  should  the 
anthropomorphism  involved  in  this  conception,  which  is  as 
obvious  as  anything  of  the  kind  can  possibly  be,  seem  less 
unsatisfactory  than  that  of  the  conception  which  religion  is 
accustomed  to  accept? 

He  who  knows  Nature  and  her  ways,  knows  all  that  really  is 
subject  of  scientific  investigation.  She  is  the  "  uncreated  and 
indestructible,  alone,  complete,  immovable,  and  without  end ; " 
and  to  have  a  full  acquaintance  with  her  is  to  "  know  the  origin 
of  all  things  on  high,  and  all  the  signs  in  the  sky,  and  the 
resplendent  works  of  the  Sun's  clear  torch,  and  whence  they 
arose."  But  not  only  this  :  "  For  she  rules  over  all  painful 


NATURE  AND  SPIRIT  455 

birth  and  all  begetting,  driving  the  female  to  the  embrace  of 
the  male,  and  the  male  to  that  of  the  female."  ..."  Does 
Parmenides "  (in  words  like  the  foregoing)  "  refer  to  the 
world  of  sense  or  to  the  world  of  ideas,  to  concrete  existence  or 
to  abstract  being ;  to  matter  or  to  spirit  ?  "  Doubtless  the  cor- 
rect historical  answer  to  this  inquiry  would  be  somewhat  as 
follows :  Parmenides,  like  his  predecessors  and  contempora- 
ries, did  not  make  the  distinctions  involved  in  the  precise 
answer  to  questions  like  these.1  And  yet  in  all  these  earlier 
utterances  of  philosophy,  as  in  all  attempts  that  have  ever 
been  made  or  that  can  ever  be  made  by  philosophy,  the  germs 
of  the  same  fundamental  and  necessary  distinctions  appear. 
For  Being  —  in  totality  and  as  such  —  is  contemplated,  de- 
scribed, and  understood  from  two  points  of  view,  the  internal 
and  the  external.  This  is  true  of  the  work  both  of  science  and 
of  philosophy. 

It  is  only  when  taken  together  as  an  Absolute  Whole  that 
Reality  can  be  spoken  of  as  uncreated,  indestructible,  perfect, 
and  eternal.  But  in  order  to  be  comprehended  as  thus  per- 
fect and  eternal,  this  Absolute  Whole  was  virtually  regarded 
by  Parmenides  and  the  early  Greek  philosophers,  both  as  Sub- 
ject and  as  object,  as  Maker  and  system  of  things  made.  As 
itself  uncreated,  IT  creates  ;  as  itself  indestructible,  IT  destroys 
and  brings  into  being  the  particular  existences.  IT  is  itself 
perfect ;  but  things  are  fragments,  or  parts,  or  individual 
products,  of  IT  ;  and  its  eternity  is  maintained  as  a  permanent 
Principle  somehow  presiding  over  and  controlling  the  cease- 
lessly actual  flux  of  particular  things  and  souls.  The  individ- 
ual males  and  females  seek  each  other's  embrace ;  and  so  the 
multiform  species  of  living  beings  continue  in  existence. 
But  She,  who  is  the  Mother  of  all,  "  rules  over  "  and  "  drives  " 
together  these  individual  children  of  her  own  womb. 

The  same  necessity  to  which  early  Greek  philosophy 
responded  in  so  naive  and  unconscious  fashion  has  shaped 

i  See  Burnet,  "  Early  Greek  Philosophy,"  p.  178  f. 


456  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

into  more  definite  forms  the  modern  scientific  and  philosophi- 
cal conceptions.  Because  matter  alone  does  not  seem  rich 
enough  in  content,  or  potent  and  varied  enough  in  its  con- 
cealed resources,  or  sufficiently  capable  of  apprehending  and 
holding  steadily  to  the  required  ideals,  therefore  men  have 
chosen  "  Nature  "  as  the  more  genial,  plastic,  and  suitable 
term.  In  her,  and  through  her,  and  by  her,  and  for  her  ends, 
all  particular  things  exist,  including  the  lives  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  race  of  "  speaking  men."  Let  the  hidden  but 
potent  reason  for  this  change  of  words  not  escape  us.  It  is 
because  the  latter  term  is  more  easily  capable  of  the  necessary 
personification. 

Immediately,  however,  the  enlargement  of  the  conception 
which  the  word  "nature"  seems  to  provide,  in  the  special 
interests  of  an  explanation  for  the  interconnected  phenomena 
of  life  and  of  history,  requires  the  old  distinctions  to  be  made 
anew.  The  Absolute  Whole  divides  itself  again  into  two 
parts.  These  parts  are  not,  indeed,  separate  and  distinct 
halves  of  a  total  sphere ;  nor  can  they  be  kept  asunder  so  as 
to  remain  independent  of  each  other  for  their  more  complete 
significance  and  their  more  effective  action.  The  rather  are 
they  two  interdependent  aspects  of  the  same  totality  as  seen 
from  two  equally  necessary  points  of  view.  These  points 
of  view  are  the  more  internal  and  subjective,  and  the 
more  external  and  objective.  Nature,  as  an  Absolute  Whole, 
becomes  two-fold ;  it  is  no  longer  simply  nature  as  the 
common  breeding-place  of  life,  but  as  herself  a  Universal 
Life.  Her  being  is  no  longer  looked  upon  as  the  undifferen- 
tiated  medium  or  soil  in  which  all  development  takes  place. 
She  is  herself  the  Ground  —  the  inner  principle  of  develop- 
ment. Nature  is  no  longer  a  system  of  things  already  formed, 
or  considered  from  the  outside  as  a  mere  collection  of  data 
arranged  in  a  series,  in  unending  time.  She  is  a  Force,  for- 
mative and  progressive  according  to  ideas.  Like  the  total 
Being  of  the  Greek  philosopher,  she  is  both  Subject  and 


NATURE  AND  SPIRIT  45T 

objects,  Maker  and  things  made.  Nature  has  become  divided 
in  some  sort  against  herself ;  her  total  Being  includes  natura 
naturata  and  natura  naturans. 

Such  pressure  brought,  so  to  speak,  upon  the  fruitful  womb 
of  nature  in  the  effort  to  make  her  hring  forth  the  Absolute 
only  results  in  the  birth  of  another  pair  of  conceptions  allied 
to  those  already  discussed.  For  Nature,  when  considered  as 
an  Absolute  Whole,  must  be  the  cause,  not  only  of  nature 
considered  as  the  system  of  material  things,  but  of  spirits  as 
well.  And  now  Nature  and  Spirit  serve  to  summarize  two 
groups  of  conceptions  under  which,  in  their  co-operative 
influence,  all  scientific  and  philosophical  explanations  fall. 
Nature  in  the  large,  as  an  eternal  but  uuspiritual  force,  pro- 
duces by  her  supremest  effort  something  spiritual,  or  rather 
an  indefinite  number  of  spirits ;  and  these  spiritual  beings 
then,  in  some  sort,  come  to  supplement  her  in  her  work  of 
evolving  life  and  of  driving  man  along  his  course  in  history. 
For  who  can  deny  that  man,  the  most  spiritual  of  all  the 
beings  of  which  we  have  any  immediate  and  verifiable  expe- 
rience, if  not  the  only  species  of  being  entitled  to  be  called 
"  a  spirit,"  is  himself  a  product  of  nature  as  soon  as  the 
latter  is  conceived  of  as  an  Absolute  Whole  ? 

When,  then,  our  theory  of  reality  speaks  of  "  nature  and 
spirit,"  it  acknowledges,  as  belonging  to  the  system  of  real 
existences,  two  species  of  beings  which  it  is  necessary  to 
assume  as  different  and  yet  somehow  co-operative  in  order  to 
account  for  the  totality  of  man's  cognitive  experience.  But 
nature  and  spirit,  in  the  lower  meanings  of  these  two  words, 
are  both  products  of  Nature,  in  the  larger  and  higher  mean- 
ing of  the  one  word.  Therefore,  natural  science  proceeds  to 
spell  this  word  with  a  capital,  and  to  attribute  to  it  all  life 
and  all  history,  including  human  life  and  human  history. 
But  religion  has  the  surer  instinct  and  the  better  showing 
of  reason  when  it  seizes  upon  the  other  word  and,  spelling 
it  with  a  capital,  exalts  it  to  the  position  of  the  Absolute. 


458  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Yet  if  Spirit  itself  be  conceived  of  as  an  abstraction,  it  is  no 
better  fitted  than  its  humbler  sister  to  serve  as  the  explana- 
tory principle  of  our  experience  with  ourselves  and  with 
things.  There  are  spirits;  and  there  exists  a  community 
of  spirits.  This  is  the  race  of  men;  and  history  is,  in  a 
measure,  of  their  making.  But  let  no  one  speak  of  "  Spirit," 
spelling  it  with  a  capital  as  though  its  mere  use  in  the  singu- 
lar number  indicated  any  corresponding  Unity  of  Reality. 
To  violate  this  injunction  is  to  talk  the  language  of  poetry 
or  of  religious  myth,  and  not  that  of  science  or  philosophy.1 

The  view  which  —  to  speak  truth  of  it  —  denies  the  effi- 
ciency and  value  of  Spirit  as  a  unifying,  explanatory  prin- 
ciple, although  making  use  of  the  term,  is  quite  the  opposite 
of  that  which  we  have  been  advocating.  Our  view  compels 
us  to  turn  the  whole  thing  "  face-about,"  as  it  were.  For  in 
our  view,  the  one  fundamental  reality,  the  actual  Being  whose 

1  In  his  chapter  discussing  the  general  conception  of  "collective  spirit" 
(Gesammtgeist)  Wundt  justly  concludes  that  this  conception,  in  order  to  gain 
clearness,  must  avail  itself  of  one  of  two  auxiliary  conceptions ;  these  are  the  con- 
ceptions of  "  organism  "  and  of  "  personality."  The  first  of  these  undergoes  essen- 
tial changes  when  we  attempt  to  apply  it  in  a  collective  way ;  for  the  so-called 
"  collective  organism  "  has  an  unlimited  capacity  for  self-organization  and  transfor- 
mation which  is  unlike  anything  we  find  belonging  to  the  individual  living  body. 
But  the  second  of  these  conceptions  can  have  its  actualization  only  in  society,  or 
in  the  State,  which  is  a  collection  of  personalities  rather  than  a  collective  Per- 
sonality. The  latter,  therefore,  is  not  capable  of  actualization.  Hence  it  would 
appear  that  nothing  in  reality  can  exist  which  answers  to  the  term,  One  Abso- 
lute or  Infinite  Spirit,  other  than  the  —  "  perhaps  unattainable  "  —  ideal  of  a 
quasi-organic  union  of  humanity,  under  ethical  principles,  into  the  State.  But 
this,  it  will  be  seen,  is  precisely  the  opposite  of  that  procedure  which  we  have 
followed,  —  namely,  of  translating  the  abstract  and  otherwise  unintelligible 
terms  of  philosophy  into  concrete  and  indubitable  experiences. 

In  his  "  Science  and  Christian  Tradition  Essays"  (p.  38  f.  and  note  on  p.  39), 
Professor  Huxley  asserts,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  "  principle  of  scientific  Nat- 
uralism does  not  lead  to  the  denial  of  the  existence  of  any  Supernature ;  but 
simply  to  the  denial  of  the  evidence  adduced  in  favor  of  this  or  that  extant  form 
of  Supernaturalism."  He  then  immediately  explains :  "  I  employ  the  words 
'  Supernature  '  and  '  Supernatural '  in  their  popular  senses.  For  myself,  I  am 
bound  to  say  that  the  term  '  Nature '  covers  the  totality  of  that  which  is.  The 
world  of  psychical  phenomena  appears  to  me  as  much  a  part  of  '  Nature '  as  the 
world  of  physical  phenomena;  and  I  am  unable  to  perceive  any  justification  for 
cutting  the  Universe  into  two  halves,  one  natural  and  one  supernatural." 


NATURE  AND  SPIRIT  459 

characteristics  are  recognized  by  the  categories,  whose  work 
is  both  nature  considered  as  the  system  of  material  things 
and  also  all  the  spirits  of  men  considered  in  their  histori- 
cal development,  is  the  Absolute  Self.  And  the  innermost 
essence  of  such  an  Absolute  Self  is  Spirit.  From  Spirit, 
then,  come  nature  and  all  spirits ;  and  in  dependence  on  this 
Spirit  they  live  and  develop.  And  the  proof  of  this  view  lies 
in  the  fact  that  to  rely  on  nature  as  a  unifying  principle,  it 
is  necessary  to  include  in  our  conception  of  nature  the  char- 
acteristics of  a  spiritual  life.  For  a  Nature  which  were  not 
tantamount  to  Infinite  Spirit  could  not  be  considered  as  an 
Absolute  Whole  — u  uncreate,  perfect,  and  eternal."  It  is 
this  Spirit  which  — 

"  Lives  through  all  life,  extends  through  all  extent, 
Spreads  undivided,  operates  unspent." 

It  cannot  be  too  carefully  noticed  at  this  point  wha,t  is  the 
exact  claim  made  for  this  doctrine  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  all 
reality.  It  is  not  the  claim  of  a  proof,  or  series  of  inferences, 
which  attempts  to  make  its  way  along  the  path  of  an  infinite 
regressus.  Nor  is  it  the  mere  hope  that,  starting  with  .the  con- 
ception of  Nature,  whether  as  a  collection  of  brute  and  in- 
animate masses  and  bits  of  matter,  or  as  a  system  of  living 
and  developing  beings,  one  may  legitimately  reach  backward 
to  the  existence  of  Spirit  as  their  ultimate  source  and  final 
ground.  Our  attempt  is  not  directed  toward  showing 
the  necessity  of  positing  spirit  and  nature,  —  two  beings 
which  divide  all  space  between  themselves,  and  whose  priority 
of  residence  and  jurisdiction  must  be  settled  on  the  basis  of 
considerations  somewhat  foreign  to  the  character  of  both. 
The  proof  we  offer  is  rather  the  discovery,  reached  by  reflec- 
tive thinking  upon  the  categories,  that  the  special  grouping  of 
these  categories  under  the  term  "  nature  "  does  not  change  the 
real  character  of  the  conceptions  themselves.  These  concep- 
tions are  all,  when  applied  to  things,  the  externally  projected 


460  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

predicates  of  selfhood  as  known  in  the  unfolding  experience 
of  the  individual  man  and  of  the  race.  So  that  the  progress 
of  the  argument  —  if  the  course  of  such  reflection  is  to  be 
called  an  "  argument "  at  all  —  is  rather  inward  than  backward. 
And,  indeed,  the  preceding  centuries  of  talk  about  a 
regressus  as  the  way  in  which  the  plain  man's  consciousness, 
or  the  observations  of  science,  or  the  speculation  of  philosophy, 
reaches  from  the  natural  system  of  things  to  the  spirit  that 
is  in  them,  is  in  violation  both  of  fact  and  of  sound  reason  as 
well.  There  is  not,  and  there  never  has  been,  any  "  brute 
inanimate  "  matter ;  there  is  not  now,  and  there  never  has 
been,  any  system  of  natural  objects  bare  or  devoid  of  indwell- 
ing Spirit.  Matter,  considered  as  wholly  without  the  charac- 
teristics of  selfhood,  is,  as  yet,  not  matter  ;  it  is  nothing,  and 
can  do  nothing ;  it  is  nought ;  it  is  not.  And  when  we  sup- 
plant this  lower  conception  by  the  more  vital,  effective,  and 
universal  term,  Nature,  we  only  acknowledge  in  a  not  less 
impressive  way  the  same  essential  truth.  This  term,  indeed, 
serves  the  great  purpose  better  than  does  matter ;  it  is  a  richer 
and  more  satisfactory  grouping  of  the  necessary  conceptions, 
because  it  is  the  more  obvious  and  richly  peisonal  and 
spiritual  term.  To  get  from  Nature  to  Spirit,  then,  we 
have  only  to  get  more  deeply  into  nature.  For  whenever 
either  mythology,  or  science,  or  philosophy  makes  due 
recognition  of  the  extent  and  potency  of  this  Absolute  Whole, 
as  an  explaining  principle  for  what  is  otherwise  particular  and 
isolated,  it  only  expresses  the  universal  insight  of  man's 
mind  into  the  real  character  of  the  world  of  things  and  of 
spirits.  Except  in  so  far  as  it  is  known  by  having  additional 
characteristics  of  Spirit,  Nature  is  as  "  brute  and  inanimate  " 
as  was  the  old-fashioned  but  now  extinct  conception  of  matter.  In 
a  word,  Nature,  too,  is  nothing,  and  can  do  nothing,  without 
Spirit ;  and  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  essentially  spiritual,  can 
it  be  known  as  the  principle  which  sums-up  and  embraces 
all  particular  realities  and  all  actual  events. 


NATURE   AND  SPIRIT  461 

It  is  customarily  supposed  that  the  modern  discoveries  in 
the  chemistry  and  physiology  of  living  organisms,  in  the 
development  of  the  living  individual,  and  in  the  evolution  of 
living  forms,  modify  the  foregoing  metaphysical  conclusions. 
This  supposition  is  to  a  certain  extent  true.  But  the  modifi- 
cation is  in  the  direction  of  enforcing  the  essential  truth  of 
the  same  conclusions,  while  changing  somewhat  the  points  of 
view  assumed  in  establishing  them.  Modern  chemical  and 
biological  science  does  nothing  in  the  direction  of  contra- 
dicting or  abolishing  these  fundamental  conceptions.  The 
chemical,  biological,  and  evolutionary  points  of  view  for  the 
phenomena  called  "  vital "  only  reveal  the  spiritual  character 
of  natural  objects  in  a  new  and  most  impressive  way.  For 
they  show  us  under  what  an  amazing  variety  of  interconnected 
forms  this  Absolute  Whole  is  ceaselessly  displaying  its  genetic 
and  architectonic  energies.  But  every  new  display  of  those 
forms  of  force  which  lay  the  origins  and  determine  the 
developments  of  things  raises  the  same  unchanging  and  fun- 
damental ontological  problems.  How  can  Nature  be  con- 
ceived of  as  capable  of  accomplishing  this  ?  Only  after  the 
analogy  of  the  Self-active  Being  that  puts  forth  its  will  in 
many  directions,  all  of  which  are  controlled  by  immanent 
ideas  and  designed  for  the  realization  of  ideal  ends. 

The  controversy  which  has  now  raged  for  some  time  over 
the  propriety  of  the  term  "  vital  force "  is  not  without  its 
suggestions  and  its  lessons,  in  this  connection.  Much  of  this 
controversy  has  done  little  credit  to  the  clear  thinking  of 
either  of  the  contending  parties.  As  though  the  facts 
could  be  interpreted  or  explained  without  resort  to  some  such 
conceptions  as  are  voiced  by  this  now  discarded  term!  As 
though,  on  the  contrary,  to  secure  the  use  of  the  term  would, 
of  itself,  either  assist  in  scientific  explanation  or  decide  men 
as  to  their  choice  between  two  diverse  systems  of  meta- 
physics and  theology  !  God  is  not  dethroned,  if  this  abstract 
term  be  discredited  and  cast  out  of  the  catalogue  of  biologists. 


462  A  THEORY   OF  REALITY 

God  is  not  established  and  the  more  truly  worshipped,  if  the 
ancient  phrases  and  formulas  are  preserved  after  they  have 
lost  their  ancient  significance. 

The  real  progress  of  biological  science  has  been  in  the  way 
of  attaining  clearer  and  more  precise  knowledge  concerning 
the  characteristics  of  all  so-called  living  bodies,  and  of  the. 
conditions  under  which  they  arise,  develop,  and  succeed  each 
other  in  countless  generations.  On  these  main  points  our 
knowledge,  although,  like  all  human  knowledge,  shading  off 
into  conjecture  as  the  outlook  into  time  runs  either  back- 
ward or  forward,  is  now  in  a  comparatively  satisfactory  state. 
So  far  as  the  testimony  of  our  actual  experience  reaches,  those 
physical  existences  which  we  call  alive  can  do  certain  things 
which  non-living  beings  cannot  do.  They  can  grow,  can  mul- 
tiply themselves  after  their  own  kind,  and  can  move  —  at 
least  their  constituent  molecules,  if  not  their  entire  bodies  —  as 
from  what  in  our  ignorance  we  are  obliged  to  call  an  u  internal 
impulse."  Matter,  when  it  is  "  endowed  with  life"  as  we 
figuratively  say,  becomes  metabolic,  reproductive,  and  capable 
of  automatic,  or  internally  originating,  movements.  As  to  their 
origin,  furthermore,  these  so-called  living  beings  are  at 
present  never  known  to  us  to  begin  to  exist,  except  in  depend- 
ence upon  the  reproductive  process.  Whatever  biologists  may 
be  pleased  to  conjecture  respecting  occurrences  in  some  far-off 
time,  and  under  greatly  changed  conditions,  so  far  as  we  now 
know,  living  beings  come  only  from  pre-existing  living  beings. 
Nature,  the  Mother  of  all,  when  she  conceives  and  brings  forth 
a  living  child,  demands  as  her  present  unvarying  rule  that 
this  production  shall  be  through  some  other  living  child  of 
hers.  This  is  as  true  of  the  cell,  the  unit  of  life,  as  it  is  of 
the  most  complex  and  highly  developed  organism. 

How,  then,  shall  that  metaphysical  way  of  speaking  which, 
in  spite  of  all  protests  to  the  contrary,  the  particular  sciences 
are  forever  compelled  by  the  very  constitution  of  the  human 
mind  to  employ,  describe  and  explain  the  phenomena  of 


NATURE  AND  SPIRIT  463 

life  ?  Physics  is  permitted  to  speak  of  the  "  forces  "  of  gravi- 
tation, of  cohesion,  etc.,  as  belonging  to  all  masses  of  tnatter 
and  as  explanatory  of  the  behavior  of  masses  under  manifold 
relations.  It  also  theorizes  about  forces  of  light,  of  electricity, 
and  of  magnetism  as  residing  in  the  ether,  and  through  their 
residence  therein  effecting  many  subtle  changes  in  tangible  and 
visible  things.  Chemistry,  in  its  turn,  deals  with  a  new  set  of 
genetic  and  architectonic  forces ;  nor  does  it  hesitate  to 
designate  these  forces  by  appropriate  names.  But  what  do 
the  physical  and  chemical  sciences  really  mean  by  this,  their 
permissible  mode  of  speech  ?  Surely  not  that  there  are  separate 
entities,  to  be  called  by  the  names  of  these  different  forms  of 
the  activity  of  masses,  molecules,  and  atoms,  which  entities  are, 
however,  also  to  be  thought  of  as  actually  coordinated  under 
one  general  head.  All  the  so-called  physico-chemical  forces 
are  only  the  ways  of  the  reciprocally  determining,  active 
relationships  which  the  different  members  of  the  system  of 
real  material  things  actually  maintain.  When,  then,  we  come 
to  new  ways  of  this  omnipresent,  active  self-relating  of  Nature, 
in  the  case  of  living  beings,  —  as  wholly  "new"  as  any  of 
those  which  chemistry  is  compelled  to  add  to  the  forces  known 
by  physics,  or  as  the  physics  of  light  and  electricity  is 
compelled  to  add  to  the  physics  of  material  masses,  —  why 
should  we  not  indulge  ourselves  in  the  same  helpful  figures  of 
speech  ?  The  masses,  the  molecules,  the  atoms  of  the  living 
things,  —  or  whatever  sizes  of  the  material  entity  you  choose 
to  make  the  seat  of  the  necessary  forces,  —  are  certainly 
behaving  in  ways  quite  beyond  the  known  habits  and  capacities 
of  non-living  things.  Here,  then,  is  a  quite  new  display  of  the 
genetic  and  architectonic  power  of  Nature.  Our  good  Dame 
is  bringing  to  pass  something  rather  original  in  her  perpetual 
economies.  She  —  "the  uncreate  and  eternal"  —  is  now 
teeming  with  products  that  can,  what  hitherto  her  products 
could  not.  These  new  creations  of  hers  can,  of  themselves, 
create ;  and  what  they  create  can  grow ;  and  as  they  grow, 


464 '  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

they  can  (like  every  amoeba)  not  simply  be  moved  from  with- 
out, but  they  can  move  as  by  a  "  will  of  their  own." 

Let  biological  science,  then,  not  be  disturbed  if  it  is  found 
convenient  to  speak  of  "  vital  force,"  as  covering  that  special 
display  of  genetic  and  architectonic  energies  which  Nature 
makes  in  the  case  of  all  living  beings.  Or  rather,  it  would 
seem  more  fitting  to  speak  of  vital  forces  ;  such  as,  for  example, 
the  metabolic,  the  reproductive,  and  the  automatic.  Some 
theory  of  "  Vitalism,"  or  its  equivalent,  will  always  be  a 
necessity  for  biological  science.1 

But  at  once  it  is  objected  that  this  manner  of  speech  does 
violence  to,  or  shows  disrespect  toward,  the  dignity  of  the  all- 
powerful  and  god-like  atoms.  For  life,  we  are  reminded,  is 
only  a  peculiar  concurrence  in  the  germ  followed  by  a  course 
of  peculiar  aggregations,  segregations,  etc.,  affecting  those 
atoms  which  constitute  the  organism.  What,  however,  does 
such  an  objection  really  accomplish ;  or,  in  case  the  objection 
be  removed  or  disregarded,  what  has  really  been  gained  ?  The 
facts  certainly  remain  the  same.  A  sufficient  explanation  must 
somehow  be  found  for  the  real  unities  and  for  the  actual 
active  relationships,  attained  and  maintained.  A  vast  variety 
of  correlated  forces,  belonging  to  one  substance,  called  Matter 
or  Nature,  comprises  the  metaphysical  outfit  of  the  chemico- 
physical  sciences.  Is  not,  in  reality,  each  one  of  these  forces  — 
gravitation,  for  example  — only  a  peculiar  way  in  which  the 
masses,  molecules,  and  atoms  of  matter  behave  toward  each 
other,  under  certain  definite  circumstances  ?  But  the  truth  of 

1  Nothing  is  more  significant  of  the  rational  necessity  for  such  a  metaphysi- 
cal conception  than  the  present  tendency  of  biology  to  return  from  its  position  of 
scorn  toward  all  theories  of  "  vital  force,"  or  "  vital  energies,"  to  a  new  and 
improved  statement  of  the  same  conception.  For  example,  a  recent  writer,  after 
declaring  that  "the  life  principle,  varying  only  in  degree,  is  omnipresent" 
.  .  .  and  that  "  the  elixir  of  life  lurks  in  every  mineral,  as  well  as  in  every  flower 
and  animal  throughout  the  universe;  it  is  the  ultimate  essence  of  everything 
on  its  way  to  higher  evolution,"  goes  on  to  affirm :  "  This  may  be  called  the 
poet's  view,  but  it  is  forced  upon  us  as  also  the  highest  generalization  of  modern 
-science." 


NATURE   AND  SPIRIT  465 

all  such  philosophical  interpretation  as  this  remains  the  same 
throughout  all  forms  of  positive  science.  And  why  should 
biology  alone  be  denied  its  sacred  metaphysical  rights  and 
privileges  ? 

We  insist,  then,  upon  the  propriety  of  continuing  that  con- 
venient but  figurative  metaphysics  which  speaks  of  "  vital 
forces  "  as  assisting  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  phenomena 
of  living  beings.  These  living  beings  are,  because  they  are 
material  and  have  mass,  necessarily  subject  to  all  the  forces 
which  physics  recognizes  as  working  in  its  peculiar  domain. 
Because  they  are  composed  of  molecules  which  have  a  compli- 
cated chemical  constitution,  and  are  built  up  under  conditions 
which  favor  or  discourage  more  or  less  well-known  chemical 
combinations,  they  are  also  to  be  regarded  as  subject  to  chemi- 
cal forces.  But  because  these  same  living  beings  do  actually 
achieve  new  forms  of  synthesis  and  architectonic  activity, 
they  may  also  properly  be  regarded  as  displaying  a  new 
kind  of  so-called  "  forces."  This  is  only  another  way  of  say- 
ing that  such  realities  have  the  active  properties  summed 
up  under  such  words  as  u  metabolism,"  "  reproductivity."  and 
automatism." 

If  now  it  is  urged  that  the  chemical  laboratory  can  simulate, 
or  even  perfectly  reproduce,  certain  of  the  simpler  organic 
compounds ;  and  that  a  few  of  the  most  hopeful  among  the 
chemists  of  to-day  confidently  look  forward  to  the  time  when 
the  chemical  laboratory  will  be  able  to  reproduce  all  the 
organic  compounds,  or  even  to  manufacture  "  protoplasm,"  the 
reply  to  such  claims  and  such  hopes  is  not  difficult.  Very 
well,  but  this  does  not  in  the  least  alter  the  case.  Chemical 
science  will  thus  serve  biological  science,  only  as  it  learns  how 
to  avail  itself  of  the  so-called  forces  of  Nature  as  they  are 
displayed,  under  certain  conditions,  in  a  definite  way  ;  but  the 
variety,  the  wonderful  character,  the  metaphysical  implica- 
tions, of  this  her  display  of  so-called  forces  will  remain 
unchanged.  And  the  higher  powers  of  the  microscope  are 

30 


466  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

daily  making  more  wonderful  the  atomic  mechanism  of  the 
protoplasmic  unit,  the  living  cell. 

Suppose  it  to  be  further  urged  that  the  phenomena  of  life 
may  all  be  regarded  as  special  forms  of  the  chemical  ener- 
gies of  the  atoms,  dependent  only  upon  their  being  brought 
together  in  peculiar  quantitative  combinations,  under  definite 
fixed  conditions.  Very  well ;  but  this,  too,  if  granted,  does 
not  essentially  alter  the  case.  For  metaphysics  does  not  aim 
to  deprive  the  sciences  of  physics,  chemistry,  and  biology,  of 
their  Substrate  —  whether  they  wish  to  take  it  in  mass,  or  as 
divisible  into  molecules  and  atoms.  Metaphysics  aims  to  in- 
terpret into  the  ultimate  terms  of  man's  cognitive  experience 
all  the  conceptions  involved  in  the  scientific  assumptions  of 
a  "  substrate,"  moved  by  "  force,"  and  obeying  "  law,"  and 
entering  into  manifold  forms  of  mutually  determined 
"  relation,"  etc. 

It  will,  however,  be  granted  by  way  of  comity  between 
metaphysics  and  these  sciences  —  we  suppose  —  that  single 
atoms  and  molecules  cannot  produce  the  phenomena  which 
living  beings  display.  For  these  phenomena  —  to  return  to 
our  first  point  of  view  —  show  the  characteristics  of  forms  of 
energies  that  are  genetic  and  architectonic  to  a  high  degree. 
Countless  multitudes  of  atoms  and  molecules,  with  a  marvel- 
lously great  variety  of  properties  belonging  to  their  various 
kinds,  are  somehow,  in  fact,  made  to  cooperate  to  the  building 
of  a  composite  substrate  whose  performances  answer  to  specific 
ideas.  Pack  all  the  forms  of  chemical  energy  that  are  known 
or  can  be  imagined,  into  the  single  atoms,  and  all  the  more  is 
the  mind  finally  compelled  to  make  an  appeal  to  some  concep- 
tion that  shall  actualize  itself  in  terms  of  force  that  unites  the 
single  atoms  in  a  definite  and  purposeful  result.  It  is  this 
compulsion  which  has  made  the  use  of  the  word  "  Nature  " 
seem  so  appropriate  as  a  title  for  the  life-giving  Mother  of  all 
the  particular  forms  of  life. 

The  demand  which  seems  obvious  enough  even  when  we 


NATUfcE  AND   SPIRIT  467 

consider  the  constitution  and  behavior  of  so-called  "un- 
differentiated  protoplasm,"  becomes  irresistible  under  the 
weight  of  the  facts  disclosed  to  the  more  extended  and  recent 
view  of  biology.  Here  our  minds  are  invited  to  consider  re- 
flectively what  is  implied  in  the  evolution  of  the  individual  and 
in  the  development  of  species.  Nature  must  be  writ  large 
and  conceived  of  as  somehow  presiding  over  the  individual 
masses,  molecules,  and  atoms,  in  order  to  conceive  of  her  as 
evolving  the  individual  living  being  and  developing  the 
various  related  forms  of  life. 

Under  what  conceptions  it  is  necessary  to  bring  the  history 
of  the  individual  living  being  has  been  made  the  repeated 
subject  of  discussion  in  the  previous  chapters  of  this  work. 
Such  a  history  is  itself  the  very  type  of  all  human  conceptions 
of  a  "  Becoming,"  which  arises  in,  and  is  carried  forward  by, 
a  fortunate  combination  of  genetic  and  architectonic  forces, 
and  which  conforms  in  reality  to  human  ideas  of  form,  law, 
and  final  purpose.  Such  a  history  is  the  very  idea  of  develop- 
ment realized.  This  position  explains  not  only  the  signifi- 
cance of  those  naive  expressions  which  fall  from  the  plain 
man's  consciousness  as  he  observes,  or  listens  to,  the  mar- 
vellous story  ;  it  also  interprets  the  true  meaning  —  however 
concealed  —  of  all  the  language  which  biology  itself  employs. 

"  If  "  says  Haeckel,1  "  the  formative  power  of  the  formless 
protoplasm  calls  forth  our  highest  admiration  among  the  re- 
markable Polythalamia,  this  is  further  increased  when  we 
turn  to  the  closely  allied  Radiolaria.  In  these  most  interest- 
ing primal  beings  we  meet  with  the  greatest  variety  of  beauti- 
ful and  strange  forms  that  can  be  found  in  the  organic 
world."  .  .  .  "  We  have  as  yet  no  conception  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  their  varied,  strange,  and  exquisite  forms,  nor  of  the 
way  in  which  they  are  shaped  by  the  formless  protoplasm  of 
the  Radiolaria"  It  is  indeed  worthy  of  "  highest  admiration  " 
to  see  the  "formative  power"  of  that  which  is  itself  "  form- 

i  See  his  "Realm  of  the  Protista,"  pp.  38  and  46. 


468  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

less,"  shape  those  molecules  of  matter  on  which  it  can  lav  its 
grasp,  into  such  a  variety  of  "  strange  and  exquisite  "  forms. 
And  this  aesthetical  feeling  which  is  aroused  in  the  observer, 
because  displayed  in  the  thing  observed,  is  one  of  many  sure 
signs  of  a  fundamental  kinship  between  the  two.  In  fact, 
however,  as  the  results  of  the  previous  discussion  of  the 
ideas  of  form,  law,  and  final  purpose  have  clearly  shown,  the 
protoplasm  out  of  which  Polythalamia  and  Radiolaria  are 
said  to  come,  is  only  relatively  formless.  Their  so-called 
protoplasm,  like  every  other  living  being,  is  already  both 
formed  and  formative ;  it  is  both  the  product  and  the  possessor 
of  the  genetic  and  architectonic  forces  which  all  living  beings 
display.  Furthermore,  when  Haeckel  confesses  ignorance  of 
the  significance,  and  of  the  manner  of  that  shaping  process 
which  results  in  the  varied  and  exquisitely  formed  coming  out 
of  the  formless,  he  only  emphasizes  the  universal  conviction  of 
every  one  intelligently  acquainted  with  natural  objects.  All 
such  forms  —  it  is  assumed  —  have  some  significance,  however 
this  significance  may  be  hidden  from  us ;  and  the  manner  of 
nature's  shaping  of  her  forms  is  in  accordance  with  immanent 
ideas.  But  to  imply  this  is  to  give  to  universal  Nature,  in  so 
far  as  she  gets  expression  in  the  particular  nature  of  individ- 
uals, or  in  the  variation  within  limits  of  the  species,  the 
characteristics  of  self-hood.  The  relatively  formless  somehow 
—  God  knows  how,  and  man  may  some  day  know  —  signifi- 
cantly shapes,  of  itself,  this  variety  of  strange  and  exquisite 
forms. 

The  entire  Life  of  Nature  is  a  ceaseless  repetition  of  essen- 
tially the  same  performances,  so  far  as  the  science  of  biology 
is  concerned  —  but  so  joined  together  into  an  historic  process 
that  it  incontestably  appears  as  a  progress  toward  some  far- 
off  goal.  Looking  backward,  indeed,  the  present  indefinite 
variety  of  forms  seems  to  withdraw  itself  into  the  relatively 
formless  ;  but  if  this  retreat  of  living  beings  be  followed  in 
imagination  and  thought  until  they  all  rest  in  the  arms  of  the 


NATURE  AND  SPIRIT  469 

formless  atoms,  our  conceptions  of  the  explanatory  causes 
of  the  natural  history  of  living  forms  remain  unchanged. 
The  atoms  are ;  and  their  collective  capacity  must  somehow 
serve  as  the  u  sea  of  activities  "  in  which  all  the  sources  of 
life  and  evolution  are  as  yet  congealed. 

"Alles  Leben  der  Natur 
1st  ein  Meer  von  Thdtigkeiten  ; 
Ohne  Rast  auf  Hirer  Spur 
Muss  Du  mil  dem  Ganzen  schreiten." 

The  evolution  of  the  organism  of  the  individual  from  its 
germinal  condition  to  its  completed  form,  through  the  peculiar 
and  complicated  reactions  of  the  forces  seated  in  its  constit- 
uent elements  upon  the  forces  belonging  to  its  environment, 
may  be  made  the  object  of  present-day  observation.  But  the 
case  is  by  no  means  the  same  with  the  development  of  the 
totality  of  living  species.  Precisely  how  the  relatively  form- 
less beginnings  proceeded  to  employ  the  "  formative  forces  " 
inherent  in  them  so  as  to  shape  such  a  variety  of  u  strange 
and  exquisite  "  forms,  we  know  far  less  about  than  we  know 
about  the  method  and  significance  of  the  procedure  of  the 
"formless  protoplasm"  of  Radiolaria.  For  here  biological 
science  is  studying  the  larger  work  of  Nature  as,  through 
indefinite  stretches  of  time,  she  has  been  using  her  synthetic 
and  architectonic  energies  to  produce  all  manner  of  living 
things.  It  is  perfectly  clear,  however,  that  a  wonderful 
conjoint  action  of  all  the  natural  forces  has  somehow  been 
secured.  For  when  considered  as  a  totality  the  living  beings 
of  the  world,  as  known  to  man,  constitute  an  interconnected 
system  the  members  of  which  are  dependent  upon  each  other 
in  countless  subtle  ways ;  and  all  of  which  are  dependent  for 
their  existence,  continuance,  and  place  within  the  system, 
upon  the  cooperation  of  all  the  forces  known  to  physics, 
chemistry,  and  biology  as  well.  But  the  metaphysically 
important  characteristics  of  this  picture  are  not  dependent 


470  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

for  their  verification  upon  any  particular  form  of  the  current 
theories  of  biological  evolution. 

"  Inheritance "  and  "variability"  are  words  which  cover 
certain  conceptions,  based  on  patent  facts,  that  are  necessary 
to  every  theory  of  the  development  of  species.  These  concep- 
tions, combined  with  those  which  sum  up  the  characteristics 
of  vital  forces  in  relation  to  the  forces  provided  by  the  envi- 
ronment, constitute  the  equipment  of  categories  which,  so  to 
speak,  modern  biology  possesses  ;  and  which  it  must  employ  in 
framing  its  answer  to  all  demands  for  an  explanation  of  vital 
phenomena,  as  displayed  on  the  scale  of  Nature  at  large. 
These  two  words  (inheritance  and  variability)  summarize 
experience  with  the  behavior  of  successive  generations  of 
living  beings  which  stand  to  one  another  in  the  morphological 
and  functional  relations  dependent  upon  their  reproductive 
activity.  "  Heredity  "  emphasizes  our  knowledge  that  some- 
thing connected  with  the  transmitted  germs  determines  a 
likeness  to  the  organism  from  which  these  germs  come. 
"  Variability  "  emphasizes  our  knowledge  that  somehow, 
whether  through  minute  differences  in  the  germs  themselves 
or  on  account  of  the  different  subsequent  conditions  to 
which  these  germs  are  inevitably  subjected,  the  likeness 
between  the  progenitor  and  the  descendant  is  never  complete. 
But  in  order  that  a  true  and  successful  development  of 
species  may  take  place,  both  heredity  and  variability  must 
harmoniously  combine.  This  is  to  say  that  the  forces  which 
tend  to  the  conservation  of  similar  forms  and  similar  func- 
tions, and  which  are  thought  of  as  due  to  the  fact  of  repro- 
duction, must  cooperate  with  the  forces  which  tend  to 
differentiation  of  forms  and  functions,  whether  these  latter 
forces  are  thought  of  as  attached  to  the  act  of  reproduction 
or  as  exercised  by  the  environment. 

It  is  at  once  clear  to  any  one  accustomed  to  reflect  carefully 
on  the  significance  for  reality  of  terms  current  in  science  or 
philosophy,  that  we  have  here  to  do  with  a  grouping  of  con- 


NATURE   AND  SPIRIT  471 

ceptions  as  comprehensive  as  they  are  elastic.  But  it  is  the 
genetic  and  architectonic  power  of  Nature  which  is  emphasized 
by  all  these  terms  —  all  the  more  impressively,  by  splitting 
this  power  up  into  a  variety  of  details.  The  facts  appear,  at 
first,  simple  enough ;  from  the  parents  come,  by  generation, 
organisms  that  are  essentially  like,  and  yet  are  always  unlike 
in  a  multitude  of  minute  particulars,  and  are  sometimes 
strikingly  unlike  in  one  or  more  rather  important  particulars. 
As  this  reproductive  process  goes  on  through  the  ages,  under 
a  great  variety  of  conditions,  the  different  species  of  living 
beings  succeed  one  another  in  a  more  or  less  orderly  way. 
If  we  accept  the  standpoint  of  Darwinism,  it  is  "  heredity  " 
which  we  may  feel  ourselves  entitled  to  take  for  granted ;  and 
then  the  burden  of  fixing  the  limits  and  the  direction  of 
variability  falls  chiefly  upon  conditions  external  to  the 
organism.  But  if  we  accept  the  more  modern  and  seemingly 
more  tenable  view,  it  is  "  variability "  whicli  should  be 
assumed  as  "  the  expression  of  the  fundamental  energy  of 
the  organism ; "  and  "  heredity  is  the  expression  of  the 
acquired  adjustment  of  the  organism  to  the  conditions  of  its 
existence."  l  Inheritance  then  becomes  an  acquired  character- 
istic ;  but  variability  is  the  primary  genetic  phenomenon  of  all 
organisms. 

In  a  word,  then,  Nature  must  put  forth  all  her  energies  in  a 
genetic  and  architectonic  way,  coordinating  them  and  yet  modi- 
fying-their  particular  combinations  through  countless  ages  of 
time,  if  the  development  of  interdependent  but  specifically  de- 
termined organisms  is  to  be  attained  as  the  result.  She  must 
differentiate  her  own  Will  in  manifold  ways ;  but  she  must 
still  employ  these  differentiations  to  the  attainment  of  specific 
ends.  She  must  not  only  "  drive  "  the  males  and  females 
to  each  other's  embrace  ;  but  she  must  shape  each  relatively 
formless  bit  of  protoplasm  which  thus  results — each  impreg- 
nated germ  of  a  living  being  —  so  as  to  conform  with  the  two 

1  See  Prof.  H.  S.  Williams,  in  "Science"  for  May  27,  1898,  p.  730. 


472  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

correlated  principles  of  heredity  and  variability.  She  must 
do  this  through  thousands  and  millions  of  years,  —  if  we  are 
to  trust  the  calendar  which  modern  evolution  has  prepared  in 
her  name.  And  these  same  formative  forces  must  shape 
more  and  more  complicated,  more  and  more  highly  developed, 
organisms.  The  full  significance  of  this,  neither  the  scientific 
nor  the  philosophic  investigator  can  understand;  for  the 
ways  of  the  natural  formative  forces  are  hard  to  discover,  and 
may  never  be  very  fully  known.  But  ignorance  cannot  dictate 
to  knowledge  the  conceptions  and  the  language  which  the 
scientific  observer  or  the  philosophic  thinker  must  employ. 
All  these  conceptions,  and  all  the  language  necessarily  used  to 
express  them,  have  meaning  and  justification  only  from  one 
point  of  view.  Nature  thus  regarded  —  and  so  she  is  regarded, 
and  only  so  can  she  be  regarded,  by  natural  science  —  is 
endowed  with  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  Selfhood.  To 
escape  from  this  conclusion  by  crying  out  against  "  anthro- 
pomorphism "  is  to  lack  the  courage  of  humanity's  most 
unalterable  convictions.  And  when  we  further  know  what 
the  inmost  reality  of  such  Selfhood  is,  we  see  that  to  speak  of 
Spirit  as  a  possible  inference  lying  outside  of,  or  behind, 
Nature,  is  to  overlook  the  plainest  features  of  our  case.  Not 
Nature  and  Spirit,  but  Spirit  as  the  true  and  essential  Being 
of  so-called  Nature,  is  what  the  conclusions  of  science  and  of 
philosophy  alike  confirm. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  ACTUALITY  OF  THE  IDEAL 

IN  a  natural  glow  of  enthusiasm  over  the  successes  of  the 
principle  of  mechanism,  both  physicist  and  philosopher  have 
been  known  to  say  :  "  Give  me  matter  and  force  and  I  will 
construct  the  world."  From  long  before  Descartes  until  the 
present  time  this  manner  of  world-building  has  seemed  most 
captivating  to  certain  minds ;  —  all  the  more  captivating 
because  it  so  readily  dispenses,  on  the  one  hand,  with  the 
mystery  which  the  unexplained  Cosmos  presents,  and  on  the 
other  hand  with  the  need  of  any  Mind  to  serve  as  a  coordinate 
principle  of  explanation,  by  the  side  of  Matter  and  Force. 
But  we  have  already  looked  a  little  way  into  the  wealth  of 
this  gift  which  is  required  in  order  fully  to  meet  the  demands 
of  physics  and  of  a  purely  physical  philosophy.  The  world  can 
be  "  constructed  "  of  matter  and  force,  only  when  these  agents 
are  first  endowed  with  all  the  qualifications  necessary  for  so 
vast  constructive  ability.  All  this  the  most  recent  advocates 
of  this  mechanical  theory  of  world-building  aim  to  cover  up 
by  repeating  conceptions  whose  inadequacy  has  been  exposed 
over  and  over  again,  in  the  history  of  reflective  thinking. 
"  Force,"  says  a  recent  writer,  "  bestows  life  and  motion  on 
matter ;  matter  is  lifeless,  without  any  power  to  move  or  alter 
itself.  Force  brings  about  all  the  changes  in  matter  that  our 
senses  seem  to  tell  us  of ;  it  is  force  alone  that  causes  these, 
matter  remaining  ever  the  same."  The  same  writer  then 
thinks  to  furnish  a  lucid  and  sufficient  account  of  the  origin  of 
life  by  affirming  that,  as  soon  as  the  physical  conditions  of  the 


474  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

earth's  crust  permitted  it,  millions  of  smaller  masses  of 
molecules  established  "inner  relations;"  then  some  of  them 
increased  in  size  by  "an  influx  of  matter  and  force;"  and 
when  later  there  "  occurred  opportunities  for  progress,"  these 
bodies  "  discovered  for  themselves  a  sphere  of  activity,"  etc., 
etc.1  Thus  by  infinitely  varied  combinations  and  variations 
the  present  infinitely  varied  and  orderly  system  of  things, 
including  man  himself,  arose. 

In  the  modest  demand,  thus  expressed  in  the  now  celebrated 
sentence,  there  lurks  a  huge  fallacy  which  is  customarily 
unchallenged  and  even  unperceived.  "  Give  me  the  matter 
and  the  force,  and  I  will  build  for  you  the  world."  Thus 
matter  and  force  are  brought  forward  as  the  theoretical 
cooperating  factors,  or  constituents,  of  the  proposed  world- 
building  ;  but  what  is  the  part  left  for  the  "  I "  in  the  actual 
process  of  world-building  ?  Now  one  can  scarcely  think  that 
any  author  of  such  a  proposal  means  to  challenge  our  admira- 
tion for  his  own  skill  as  a  world-builder,  in  the  following  terms  : 
•"  Put  at  my  disposal  the  sum-total  of  '  lifeless  matter '  and 
the  gross  amount  of  the  world  energy ;  and  then  you  shall  be 
told  precisely  how  all  particular  things  came  to  be  as  they  all 
actually  have  been  and  are."  For  the  Ego  of  this  theoretical 
and  purely  hypothetical  builder  of  a  Cosmos  out  of  matter  and 
force,  would  certainly  need  knowledge,  in  order  rightly  to  set 
about  his  monstrous  task.  His  Ego  as  pure  blind  Will,  or 
mere  Being,  could  not  construct  a  system  of  things.  Indeed, 
nothing  short  of  all  knowledge,  of  omniscience,  would  need 
to  be  granted  before  this  Ego  could  even  tell  how  matter  and 
force  have  actually  built,  and  are  still  building,  the  world. 
Must,  then,  so  proud  a  promise  be  understood  to  mean  only 
this :  the  Omnipotent  and  the  Omniscient  One  knows  how 
the  world  was  built,  whether  by  himself  or  by  some  other, 

1  So,  e.  g.,  Heir  W.  Kotzauer  in  an  article  in  Der  Stein  der  Weisen,  which  we 
select  as  an  illustration,  not  on  account  of  its  merit,  but  on  account  of  the  naive, 
outspoken  character  of  its  materialism. 


THE   ACTUALITY  OF   THE  IDEAL  475 

out  of  matter  and  force.  Whatever  the  sentence  means, 
it  is  necessary  to  add  a  third  at  least  coordinate  factor  in 
order  to  explain  —  not  to  say,  effect  —  the  actual  construction 
of  the  world  ?  Shall  we  accordingly  say  :  "  Give  me  matter, 
force,  and  ideas  that  correspond  throughout  to  the  reality, 
and  then  I  will  tell  you  how  the  world  was  built  ?  "  Or  make 
me  to  be  an  Omniscient  Will,  and  I  will  build  you  a  World  ? 

Throughout  the  previous  metaphysical  discussions  we  have 
constantly  refrained  from  claiming  to  know  already,  or  ex- 
pecting ever  to  be  able  to  discover,  precisely  how  this  actual 
infinity  of  things  called  the  "  Universe  "  came  to  be  as  it  is. 
Metaphysics  surely  cannot  give  to  man  the  valid  history  of 
the  evolution  of  things  ;  it  must  learn  from  the  sciences  what 
it  can  about  this  history.  But  the  searcher  after  a  system  of 
metaphysics  is  not  to  be  deceived  by  a  purely  figurative  use 
—  much  less  by  a  misuse — of  abstract  terms.  Matter  and 
force  are  terms  which,  when  employed  in  this  vague,  general 
way,  have  only  the  value  of  abstractions.  They  stand  for  that 
"  crude  lumpishness  "  which  may  be  considered  as  the  sub- 
stantial basis  of  all  particular  things ;  and  for  the  additional 
necessity  of  somehow  getting  this  otherwise  "  lifeless  "  stuff 
to  work,  if  a  system  of  such  things  is  ever  to  come  out  of  it. 

In  a  word,  every  attempt  to  construct  a  world  out  of  Matter 
and  Force  —  however  little  way,  or  however  far,  such  an 
attempt  may  go  —  virtually  recognizes  from  the  start  the 
actuality  of  ideas  of  things.  For  that  Being  of  the  World, 
which  is  granted  out  of  hand,  must  somehow  come  to  some- 
thing definite,  must  go  in  some  direction  rather  than  another ; 
the  undifferentiated  IT  must  take  on  a  succession  of  forms, 
under  a  variety  of  laws.  But  all  this  means  absolutely 
nothing,  unless  the  actuality  of  ideas  be  admitted  as  belong- 
ing to  the  essential  nature  of  things. 

To  the  student  of  the  human  mind  in  a  broad  way  there 
are  few  phenomena  more  interesting  than  the  sceptical  revul- 
sion, the  spasm  of  agnostic  terror,  which  seizes  many  thinkers 


476  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

as  they  are  brought  to  try  final  conclusions  with  a  truth  such 
as  has  been  evinced  in  every  chapter  of  this  treatise.  To 
many  of  the  detailed  applications  of  this  central  truth  all 
minds  readily  assent.  But  from  the  truth  itself  —  the  truth, 
namely,  that  the  world  is  known  to  be,  only  as  it  is  an  actuali- 
zation of  the  Ideal  —  they  strenuously  dissent.  Let  us,  then, 
at  this  point  recall  that  epistemological  assumption  which 
our  theory  of  reality  —  in  common  with  every  possible 
theory  of  reality,  whether  partial  and  unsystematic  or  aim- 
ing at  complete  and  systematic  form  —  thought  it  right  to 
accept.  The  assumption  was  not  that  all  ideas  are  true  pic- 
tures of  reality ;  nor  was  it  that  reality  is  for  us,  merely  our 
idea.  Neither  was  it  that  all  reality  can  be  known,  or  re- 
duced to  terms  of  our  ideas.  But  it  was  that  the  fundamen- 
tal forms  of  human  cognition  are  the  unchanging  forms  of 
reality — so  far  as  reality  is  known  or  is  conceivable  by  man. 
This  assumption  was  no  mere  reafnrmation  of  the  stand- 
point of  the  Kantian  critique.  The  truth  about  human  knowl- 
edge is  not  that  the  intellect  of  man  constructs  realities  after 
its  own  pattern  —  phenomenal  realities,  merely;  while  so- 
called  "  things-in-themselves  "  remain  forever  unknown  and 
unknowable  by  man.  Neither  is  it  the  truth  that  extra-meutally 
existent  realities  somehow  make  themselves  recognized  by 
the  mind,  without  consulting  its  nature,  so  to  speak,  and 
while  remaining  themselves  quite  foreign  to  the  mind.  But 
the  truth  is  that  all  knowledge  of  reality  is  a  commerce  of 
beings  which  have  an  essentially  common  nature  ;  and  which 
have  being  at  all,  and  enter  into  manifold  relations,  only  as 
they  have  the  same  Ground.  Therefore  man  could  not  have 
ideas  of  things,  unless  things  were  themselves,  somehow, 
actualized  ideas.  Nor  could  he  frame  any  justifiable  or 
rational  ideal  of  what  actually  is,  —  not,  in  this  connection, 
to  speak  of  what  ought  to  be,  —  unless  that  whole  which  we 
call  Nature,  or  the  Universe,  were,  somehow,  to  be  regarded 
an  actualized  Ideal.  "  Somehow,"  to  be  so  regarded.  For  no 


THE  ACTUALITY  OF   THE  IDEAL  >*i2<L 

account  can  be  given,  either  of  cognition  (which  is  the  epis- 
temological  problem),  or  of  the  reality  given  in  cognition 
(which  is  the  ontological  problem),  without  admitting  every- 
where the  actualization  of  ideas.  Neither  selves  nor  things, 
neither  the  individual  beings  nor  the  Universal  Nature  which 
is  the  Mother  of  all  individual  beings,  can  be  conceived  of, 
or  can  really  be,  other  than  as  the  presence  and  power  of 
immanent  ideas  is  taken  into  the  account. 

All  reality  is  known,  then,  only  as  an  actualization  of  ideas. 
But  now  —  for  several  reasons,  and  especially  because  of  the 
fact  that  reality  and  idea  are  customarily  distinguished  as 
contrasted,  or  even  opposed  to  one  another  —  the  inquiry  after 
a  more  definite  meaning  of  this  phrase  is  raised.  Such  an 
inquiry  is  likely  to  be  accompanied  by  the  return  in  full  force 
of  the  tide  of  scepticism  and  agnosticism  which  the  first  at- 
tempt at  a  system  of  metaphysics  asks  to  have,  at  least 
temporarily,  kept  back.  What,  precisely,  is  meant  by  the 
"  actualization  of  ideas  "  ?  and,  How  can  it  be  maintained,  as 
a  truth  on  which  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  the  theory  of 
reality  must  unite,  that  the  material  things  of  which  the  world 
is  made  up  are  all  to  be  known  only  as  "  actualized  ideas  "  ? 

Idea  and  reality  are  necessarily  contrasted,  when  by  idea 
is  meant  only  an  occurrence  in  the  stream  of  the  individual's 
consciousness.  The  word  is,  indeed,  vague  ;  and  although 
much  employed  in  the  earlier  English  works  on  psychology, 
logic,  and  epistemology,  it  is  now  more  rarely  and  more  cau- 
tiously used.  Let  us,  however,  for  the  moment,  accept  it  in 
this  vague  and  most  comprehensive  meaning.  It  then  at 
once  becomes  necessary  to  make  a  very  important  distinction 
among  ideas  themselves.  Some  of  them,  according  to  this 
distinction,  remain  mere  ideas  ;  but  others  of  them  attain  a 
peculiar  significance  and  influence  over  the  perpetual  readjust- 
ments of  the  self  to  its  environment,  because  they  are  held  to 
be  something  far  more  than  mere  ideas.  To  this  class 
belong  such  ideas  as,  by  that  common  consent  on  which  both 


>r" 
U*XV£  -  ^ 


478  A  THEORY   OF   REALITY 

society  and  science  are  based,  truly  and  faithfully  represent 
realities.  In  a  certain  meaning  of  the  word  "  actual,"  this 
word  may  be  applied  to  both  classes  of  ideas ;  all  ideas  actu- 
ally are  whenever  they  occur  in  the  consciousness  of  an  indi- 
vidual self — as  actual  events,  real  momenta,  or  constituent 
parts,  of  the  total  life  of  that  self.  But  such  ideas  as  faith- 
fully represent  realities  sustain  a  different  relation  —  so  it  is 
commonly  thought  —  both  to  the  stream  of  individual  con- 
sciousness and  to  the  world  that  is  conceived  of  as  lying  out- 
side of  that  stream. 

Further  experience  with  ourselves  and  with  others  shows 
how  the  principle  of  continuity  applies  even  to  this  fundamen- 
tal and  valid  distinction  in  ideas.  For  there  never  can  exist 
a  mere  idea,  if  by  this  term  be  meant  a  phase  of  conscious 
life,  that  has  no  roots  in  reality,  that  nowhere  takes  hold  on 
what  must  itself  be  considered  as  lying  outside  such  passing 
phase.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  idea  —  not  even  the 
clearest  idea  of  the  most  concrete  and  indubitable  actuality, 
as  it  occurs  in  the  consciousness  of  the  most  exact  and  cau- 
tious scientific  observer  —  that  is  not  replete  with  elements 
which  are  the  contribution  of  the  peculiar  individual  mind, 
whose  is  the  aforesaid  idea.  "  The  world  is  my  idea,"  says 
Schopenhauer  in  the  opening  sentence  of  his  metaphysical 
treatise,  —  "this  is  a  truth  which  holds  good  for  everything  that 
lives  and  knows,  though  man  alone  can  bring  it  into  reflective 
and  abstract  consciousness."  But  this  is  "  empty  idealism,"  — 
to  use  Hegel's  term.  It  can  do  nothing  for  metaphysical  sys- 
tem but  wander  over  the  shifting  field  of  the  individual's  con- 
sciousness, and  attach  its  one  label  for  all  things  to  every 
specimen  therein  ;  it  is  "  mine  "  and  "  mine  "  and  "  mine," 
whether  it  be  the  pain  of  toothache,  the  latest  accepted  hypoth- 
esis, or  your  personality,  the  realm  of  Nature,  the  reality  of 
God.  And  yet,  my  world  is  also  a  more  or  less  closely  woven 
system  of  real  beings  and  actual  transactions  which  is  the  same 
as  the  world  of  other  men.  Otherwise  science  and  social  inter- 


THE  ACTUALITY  OF  THE  IDEAL  479 

course  of  every  kind  were  impossible,  and  even  my  own  individ- 
ual stream  of  conscious  ideas  could  not  be.  Nature  makes  her- 
self known  in  the  current  of  my  ideas,  as  she  is  made  known 
to  all  men  ;  but  she  has  also  her  peculiar  manner,  special 
dress,  distinct  and  individual  voice,  in  revealing  herself  to  me. 

The  ideas  which  arise  in  my  individual  stream  of  conscious- 
ness,—  and  thus  all  ideas  arise  for  me,  —  but  which  are  taken 
to  be  faithful  representations  of  concrete,  actual  existences, 
are  my  so-called  cognitions.  Like  the  mere  ideas,  these  cog- 
nitions are  really  existent  only  as  they  are  events,  actually 
occurring,  in  the  life  of  the  conscious  self.  But  unlike  those 
ideas  which  are  spoken  of  as  "  mere  ideas,"  and  are  therefore 
contrasted  with,  or  opposed  to,  what  is  actual,  all  cognitive 
ideas  sustain  peculiar  and  significant  relations  to  Reality. 
These  relations  are  summed  up  for  popular  expression  in  the 
phrase  "  representative."  In  this  their  peculiar  work  of  rep- 
resentation, cognitions  show  to  us  what  is  the  true  type,  the 
essential  characteristic  of  an  actualized  idea.  Every  "  actual- 
ized idea  "  is,  primarily,  some  phase  in  the  life  of  a  self.  But 
any  phase  is  called  a  "  mere  idea,"  and  only  the  actuality  of  a 
passing  event  in  consciousness  is  allowed  to  it,  unless  it  pos- 
sesses something  more  than  simple  ideality.  This  "  some- 
thing more  "  it  gets,  so  far  as  the  standpoint  of  psychology  is 
concerned,  by  somehow  raising  itself  to  the  position  of  a  cog- 
nition. Ideas  that  can  say  "  I  know  "  take  hold  on  a  reality 
which  is  something  other  than  merely  an  actual  event  in  the 
subject,  a  temporary  phase  of  the  individual's  stream  of 
consciousness. 

What  now  is  it  that  ideas  faithfully  representative  of  real- 
ity, or  in  other  words  cognitions,  are  thought  to  have,  which 
other  and  mere  ideas  do  not  possess  ?  The  answer  which 
psychological  analysis  suggests  is  this :  Cognitions  are  not 
mere  ideas,  because  somehow  the  whole  Self  goes  into  them. 
In  a  word,  if  I  wish  to  know  that  any  phase  of  my  own  con- 
scions  life  is  no  mere  idea,  but  that  just  this  phase  strikes 


480  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

its  roots  down  deep  into  the  reality  of  my  own  being,  and  of 
the  being  of  the  world  that  is  not  me,  then  I  somehow  manage 
to  convert  the  idea  into  a  cognition.  This  I  do,  in  the  simplest, 
most  direct  and  primary  way  by  a  deed  of  will,  which  is  accom- 
panied or  followed  by  the  feelings  of  various  kinds  that  give  the 
impulse,  the  guide,  the  endorsement  to  a  cognitive  judgment. 
That  any  particular  idea  is  "  of "  a  reality  and  no  longer 
"  mere  idea,"  I  know  whenever  I  can  impute  to  the  idea  the 
testimony  in  experience  of  volitions  and  feelings  of  a  peculiar 
kind.  In  other  words,  psychological  analysis  shows  that  every 
cognition  is  a  complex  of  feelings,  and  a  deed  of  will ;  and  is  not 
merely  an  idea,  in  the  narrower  meaning  of  the  word  "  idea." 
If  this  analysis  be  continued  into  the  domain  of  a  critical 
theory  of  knowledge,  it  appears  that  only  as  man  wills,  and 
feels  the  effects  of  inhibited  will,  and  does  not  merely  ideate 
or  merely  think,  is  that  commerce  with  reality  gained  in  which 
the  essential  nature  of  cognition  consists. 

Further,  the  analysis  of  what  it  is  for  any  being  —  whether 
Self  or  Thing  —  actually  to  be,  and  not  merely  to  exist  in 
the  ideas  of  some  other  being  (the  answer  to  the  metaphys- 
ical question  as  to  what  Being,  in  truth,  is),  brings  the  mind 
to  a  similar  conclusion.  Every  concrete  individual  reality 
maintains  its  claim  to  the  title  "  actual,"  only  in  so  far  as  it 
is  self-active,  constantly  guiding  its  own  actions  in  manifold 
changing  relations  with  other  beings,  according  to  immanent 
ideas.  This  very  phrase,  "  immanent  ideas,"  is  the  one  which 
it  was  found  necessary  to  substitute  for  the  entirely  vague  and 
incomprehensible  words,  "  form,"  "  law,"  "  development,"  etc., 
as  applied  to  the  otherwise  "  crude  lumpishness  "  of  things. 
For  things,  too,  are  known  to  be  real  only  as  they  are  wills, 
actively  changing  relations  to  one  another  under  the  control 
of  common  ideas.  Actuality,  for  material  beings  as  well  as  for 
ourselves,  requires  this  same  complex  of  essential  character- 
istics, —  viz.  being  self-active,  in  relation  to  one  another,  in 
obedience  to  ideas,  and  in  pursuit  of  ideas. 


THE  ACTUALITY  OF  THE  IDEAL  481 

We  may,  then,  summarize  those  demands  which  we  make 
upon  every  reality,  and  which  we  find  fulfilled  by  every  real 
being,  in  the  following  statement :  Ideas  are  actualized  when- 
ever they  become  consciously  recognized  as  differentiating  prin- 
ciples for  deeds  of  will.  Or,  to  turn  about  the  statement  of 
this  fundamental  truth  of  metaphysics  :  Self-active  beings  that 
have  cognizable  forms,  and  obey  laws,  and  show  adaptations  to 
ends,  are  "  actualized  ideas"  Without  regarding  them  as 
actualized  ideas  we  cannot  know  either  things  or  selves  as 
really  existing  at  all ;  and  only  as  things  and  selves  exist 
by  conforming  to  the  group  of  conceptions  which  experience 
attaches  to  the  "  actualization  of  ideas,"  do  they  exist  at  all. 

The  Self  makes  actual  its  own  ideas  by  deeds  of  will  that 
are  directed  by  these  ideas.  This  is  a  plain  statement  of  the 
truth  of  fact  which  enters  into  all  our  workaday  life,  into 
all  handicrafts,  and  into  all  art  and  all  social  intercourse. 
So  long  as  I  give  no  expression  to  my  idea  by  a  deed  of  will, 
or  by  a  succession  of  such  deeds,  it  remains  a  so-called  "  mere 
idea."  We  have  repeatedly  said  that  no  idea  can  be  con- 
sidered as  severed  from  all  its  roots  in  actuality.  Each  idea 
still  remains  my  idea ;  and  if  its  particular  genesis  is  care- 
fully inquired  into,  this,  too,  will  be  found  in  some  kind  of 
being  that  is  not  merely  my  idea.  If,  however,  the  mind  wishes 
to  impart  to  any  conscious  state  that  peculiar  kind  of  actuality 
which  makes  it  impossible  any  longer  to  consider  such  state 
as  merely  an  idea,  then  the  idea  must  be  actualized  as  a 
formative  principle  for  the  will.  I  act,  as  both  a  willing  and 
an  ideating  Self ;  and  now  my  idea  becomes  actualized.  This 
actualizing  of  ideas  is  illustrated  by  every  simplest  daily  ex- 
perience, and  by  the  most  complicated  forms  of  planning  and 
of  execution  —  whether  to  a  successful  or  an  unsuccessful, 
to  a  wise  or  a  foolish,  issue.  The  movement  of  some  bodily 
member,  the  drawing  of  a  geometrical  figure,  the  shaping  of 
some  external  material,  the  taking  of  a  journey,  the  contrib- 
uting of  influence  to  the  mental  life  of  some  fellow  man  or  to 

31 


482  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  political  and  social  fabric,  may  all  exist  merely  in  ideas  ; 
but  these  all,  in  order  to  become  actualized  ideas,  must  be 
set  into  reality  as  deeds  of  will. 

So  far  as  the  Self,  the  actualizer  of  its  own  ideas,  is  con- 
cerned, each  concrete  actualization  is  a  single,  indivisible 
unity,  as  it  were.  It  is  true  that  the  description  of  what  we 
do  with  ourselves,  in  every  actualization  of  our  own  ideas, 
divides  that  which  in  its  living  actuality  is  one  and  undivided,, 
into  subject  and  object,  into  faculties  of  ideation,  feeling,  and 
will.  But  the  real  unity  is  the  whole  Self — the  conscious, 
self-active  will,  whose  ideas  are  not  actual  occurrences,  or 
entities,  apart  from  its  own  being,  but  are  immanent  in  itself. 
The  simplest  truth  is,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  complex,  the 
most  abstruse,  and  the  most  mysterious  of  truths  :  I  am  myself, 
in  reality,  existent  as  an  actualization  of  ideas.  And  this  is 
the  same  thing  as  saying  that  I  am  a  will,  active  according 
to  consciously  recognized  ideas. 

But  no  individual  human  being  can  be  considered  apart  from 
those  other  beings  on  whose  existence  and  reciprocal  influence 
every  such  real  selfhood  is  dependent.  I  cannot  actualize 
a  single  one  of  my  ideas  except  in  so  far  as  I  am  dependency 
related  to  other  real  beings,  and  thus  actualize  my  own  ideas, 
in  and  through  the  changes  in  these  other  beings.  Even  in 
the  case  where  my  idea  is  of  the  very  simplest,  and  the  other 
being  in  which  it  is  to  be  actualized  is  most  nearly  related 
to  me,  —  most  intimately  under  my  influence,  —  the  truth 
remains  essentially  the  same.  I  have,  for  example,  the  idea 
of  moving  my  arm  —  upward,  downward,  to  the  right  or  to 
the  left,  or  in  some  other  definite  direction.  This  is  still 
mere  idea.  To  actualize  it,  then,  consciousness  must  attain 
more  of  reality  than  to  be  a  mere  show-room,  or  stage,  for 
ideas,  whether  of  its  own  or  of  some  other  being.  To  actualize 
the  idea,  the  mind  must  have  the  reality  of  being  that  belongs 
to  Will ;  it  must  actualize  itself  as  will  in  a  deed  of  will.  But 
it  has  already  been  said  that  no  human  mind  can  give  to  its 


THE  ACTUALITY  OF  THE  IDEAL        483 

idea  the  simplest  and  most  intimate  form  of  actualization 
without  being  dependent  upon  that  which  is  other  than  itself. 
If  one's  idea  is  to  be  actualized  in  one's  own  body,  this  body 
even  must  be  regarded  as  other  than  the  ideating  and  willing 
self.  The  will  sets  into  reality  the  idea,  and  the  volition  in 
accordance  with  the  idea,  through  some  occurrence  in  a  form 
of  reality  which  has  a  being  other  than  that  of  either  the  idea 
or  the  will.  But  this  is  to  say  that  my  idea  becomes  actual- 
ized when  this  other  being  acts  in  accordance  with  this  idea. 
Thus  those  bodily  movements,  which  are  not  mere  physiolo- 
gical reflexes,  express  the  mind's  ideas  and  volitions  in  pur- 
suance of  these  ideas.  The  product  of  the  workman's  tool, 
the  concrete  result  of  the  artist's  endeavor,  the  shaping  of 
souls  by  the  influences  of  oratory,  or  by  education,  or  by 
example,  are  all  instances  of  the  actualization  of  the  ideas  of 
one  individual  being  in  the  changes  of  a  being  other  than 
itself. 

All  man's  actualization  of  his  ideas,  in  order  to  be  under- 
stood or,  indeed,  to  be  brought  about,  must  therefore  take 
account  of  the  so-called  nature  of  other  beings.  No  ideas  of 
any  man,  however  intense  and  clear  those  ideas  may  be,  or 
however  much  backed  up  and  pushed  out  into  reality  by 
strenuous  deeds  of  will,  can  get  actualized  quite  irrespective 
of  the  material  in  which  this  actualization  takes  place.  This 
"  other "  than  the  individual  self  which  has  the  ideas  must 
have  its  say,  too,  as  to  what  particular  ideas  shall  be  actual- 
ized in  it ;  and  also  as  to  precisely  how  every  such  actualiza- 
tion shall  come  about.  This  significant  truth  the  popular 
language,  and  science  as  well,  is  apt  to  cover  up  by  speaking 
of  the  "  nature  "  of  things,  of  the  "  laws  "  which  they  obey, 
of  the  "  forces "  that  reside  in  them,  and  of  the  "  causes  " 
that  determine  the  behavior  of  the  things.  One  cannot  make 
chicory  as  good  for  the  breakfast  table  as  coffee,  no  matter 
how  much  one  may  cherish  the  idea  or  the  will  to  accomplish 
this.  And  not  only  "  if  wishes  were  horses,"  but  also  if  the 


484  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

stones  of  the  highway  could  be  willed  to  take  on  the  idea  of 
acting  like  horses,  then  "  beggars  might  ride."  That  would 
be  by  no  means  our  world,  however,  —  whether  more  nearly 
like  Paradise,  or  hell,  or  a  fool's  dream,  than  our  world  is,  — 
in  which  all  manner  of  ideas  could  get  themselves  actualized 
in  all  manner  of  real  things.  All  the  beings  of  the  world 
may  thus  be  said  to  be  actualizing  their  own  ideas ;  but 
then  they  are  all  also  actualizing  each  other's  ideas.  Further, 
most  ideas  they  all  refuse  either  to  entertain  as  actualized  by 
themselves,  or  to  assist  each  other  in  actualizing. 

What,  however,  is  the  meaning  for  a  true  theory  of  reality 
of  all  such  language  as  the  foregoing,  which  —  although  we 
gave  it  a  figurative  turn  —  is  substantially  that  employed  by 
science  and  by  the  people  at  large  ?  Men  talk  about  things  as 
they  do,  because  their  knowledge  of  things  forces  them  to 
recognize  in  things  the  actualization  of  ideas.  That  is  to  say, 
the  reality  of  things,  like  the  reality  of  the  self,  is  intel- 
ligible only  as  both  are  thought  to  be  self-active  existences 
that,  in  all  their  changing  relations  to  us  and  to  one  another,  are 
controlled  by  immanent  ideas.  But  the  final  meaning  which 
the  mind  is  obliged  to  give  to  the  phrase,  "  actualized  ideas," 
when  this  phrase  is  applied  to  things,  remains  essentially 
unchanged.  The  displacement  of  the  older  physical  conception 
of  "  brute,  inanimate  matter,"  that  must  somehow  have  force 
come  on  it  wholly  from  without  in  order  to  get  possessed  of 
the  higher  forms  and  potencies  that  belong  to  particular 
things,  shows  an  increased  insight  into  the  true  nature  of 
things.  Like  ourselves,  all  material  existences  are  known 
in  reality  to  be,  and  what  they  are  in  reality  is  known  to  us, 
only  as  ideas  become  "  the  consciously  recognized  differentiat- 
ing principles  "  of  the  forces  they  display  ;  i.  e.,  of  their  deeds 
of  will. 

We  do  not  indeed  know  how  far  each  particular  thing  — 
man's  body,  the  spinal  cord  of  the  decapitated  frog,  the  white 
blood-corpuscle,  the  vibrating  molecule  or  atom  "  electing  its 


THE  ACTUALITY  OF   THE  IDEAL  485 

affinity"  —  has  the  power  to  participate,  so  to  speak,  by  co- 
consciousness,  in  its  own  different  forms  of  behavior,  its  own 
obedience  to  law,  its  own  adaptation  to  a  variety  of  ends. 
We  do  know  that  we  ourselves,  the  so-called  crowns  of  in- 
telligent and  self-conscious  creation,  have  this  power  in  only 
a  very  partial  way.  Most  of  what  we  do,  or  seem  to  do, 
is  actually  done  for  us  by  One  not-ourselves  rather  than  by 
ourselves,  as  well  as  for  ourselves.  But  what  we  do  indubi- 
tably know  is  this :  Knowledge  itself  is  such,  and  all  objects 
of  knowledge  are  known  to  be  such,  that  the  conscious 
recognition  of  the  ideas  which  differentiate  their  activities 
must  somehow  be  assumed  in  order  to  explain  them.  And 
this  fact  cannot  have  its  ground  solely  in  our  ideas  of  things ; 
it  must,  the  rather,  have  its  ground  in  a  reality  that  is  not- 
ourselves.  In  a  word,  we  know  things  only  as  Some  One's 
"  actualized  ideas." 

Neither  workaday  experience,  nor  science,  nor  philosophy, 
can  regard  things  and  selves  as  wholly  isolated  or  separate 
from  one  another.  Every  particular  existence,  whether  it  be 
of  some  Self  or  of  some  Thing,  is  known  only  as  a  part  of 
the  total  system  of  selves  and  things.  As  what  is  remote 
becomes  known  by  spectroscope  and  telescope,  and  what  is 
minute  by  microscope  and  chemical  analysis,  this  conception 
of  common  bonds  uniting  all  particular  beings  with  one  vast, 
mysterious,  but  interrelated  Whole,  becomes  more  clear,  more 
defensible,  more  exact,  more  confidently  rational. 

But  all  such  progress  toward  a  more  perfect  knowledge  of 
the  world,  including  man  and  his  historical  development,  as 
a  Unity  of  Reality,  toward  a  comprehensive  history  of  the 
Cosmos  in  any  comprehensible  meaning  of  such  words,  rests 
upon  the  same  fundamental  assumption.  The  mind  is  always 
dealing  with  a  progressive  and  interrelated  system  of  actual- 
ized ideas.  And  the  more  it  becomes  inclined  to  insist  upon 
the  absolute  and  "  uncreate  "  nature  of  the  totality,  the  more 
necessary  the  assumption  becomes.  Granted,  then,  that, 


486  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

given  matter  and  force,  some  "  I,"  some  Self,  could  construct 
the  world.  This  could  never  take  place  unless  the  Will  of 
such  a  Self  could  express  itself  in  the  matter  and  force  for  the 
actualization  of  its  own  ideas.  If  the  Whole  is  to  be  under- 
stood as  self-contained  and  absolute,  this  does  not  exclude, 
but  the  rather,  of  necessity,  includes  the  immanency  in  that 
Whole  of  the  requisite  formative  and  differentiating  ideas. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  speaking  chiefly  of  the  "  actualiza- 
tion of  ideas.'9  But  ideals  are  somewhat  other  and  more  than 
ideas  —  especially  when  the  ideals  are  considered  as  set  into 
reality.  Considered  as  occurrences  in  some  stream  of  con- 
sciousness, ideals  are  essentially  like  all  other  ideas.  Viewed 
psychologically,  they  are  products  of  imagination  and  thought ; 
and  they  may  powerfully  excite  and  efficiently  guide  the  will 
of  the  man  who  has  them.  Thus  any  man  may,  in  a  limited 
manner  at  least,  actualize  his  ideals.  By  an  ideal,  however,  is 
customarily  meant  an  idea  which  sustains  a  different  and  pe- 
culiar relation  to  actuality.  Thus  understood,  an  ideal  is  an 
idea  of  what  "  might  be,"  or  "  should  be,"  or  "  ought  to  be,"  as 
distinguished  from  an  idea  of  what  actually  is.  The  peculiar 
spheres  of  the  ideal  are,  therefore,  supposed  to  be  ethics,  art, 
and  religion ;  and  the  actualization  of  such  ideals,  so  far  as 
they  admit  of  actualization  at  all,  is  to  be  found  in  conduct,  in 
artistic  endeavor,  in  the  religious  life.  But  it  does  not  fall 
within  the  scope  of  this  treatise  to  consider  in  detail  such 
ideals  as  these,  —  their  nature,  origin,  or  means  of  realization. 

The  student  of  the  theory  of  knowledge  and  of  systematic 
metaphysics  cannot  fail  to  observe,  however,  that  what  men 
call  their  surest  scientific  cognitions,  as  well  as  the  objects 
which  men  esteem  most  undoubtedly  real,  are  not  uninfluenced 
by  human  ideals.  Indeed,  the  very  conception  of  Nature,  of  a 
Cosmos,  of  one  World  of  many  beings  that  is  constructed  out 
of  matter  and  force,  is  itself  an  ideal.  It  is  an  idea  which, 
while  it  rests  on  a  certain  solid  foundation  of  knowledge, 
nevertheless  contains  not  a  few  thoughts  and  imaginings  as 


THE   ACTUALITY  OF  THE  IDEAL  487 

to  what  "  might  be,"  or  "  ought  to  be,"  although  it  is  as  yet 
not  known  "actually  to  be."1  Science  cherishes  its  own 
ideals.  Without  these  ideals  science  would  not  be  progres- 
sive; perhaps  it  would  not  exist  at  all.  For  human  minds 
would  not  be  spurred  or  allured  on  to  its  conquests;  nor 
would  the  world  of  realities  seem  to  meet  and  to  reveal  itself 
to  these  minds.  Science,  therefore,  no  matter  how  exact  in 
its  realism  it  may  aim  to  be,  is  always  outrunning  its  own 
cognitive  ideas  with  the  banner  of  its  ideals  in  its  hand. 
And  the  strain  it  thus  puts  upon  imagination  and  thought,  as 
well  as  the  rewards  which  it  receives  from  imagination  and 
thought,  are  little  inferior  to  those  which  belong  to  art  and 
to  religion. 

Pre-eminently  is  the  modern  conception  of  Nature  as  an 
absolute  and  uncreate  Whole,  as  a  Cosmos  that  has  been 
through  countless  millions  of  years  in  the  process  of  build- 
ing itself  by  changing  combinations  of  matter  and  force,  and 
has  thus  raised  its  own  fabric  to  heights  of  ever  greater  com- 
plexity, beauty,  and  value,  a  vast  and  entrancing  but  un- 
proved Ideal.  Strictly  speaking,  science  does  not  know,  and 
it  never  will  know,  that  the  Reality  corresponds  to  this  con- 
ception. The  conception  itself  is  by  no  means  purely  scien- 
tific ;  it  is  largely  the  work  of  the  artistic  and  religious  soul 
of  man.  Were  it  not  that,  as  a  conception,  it  so  feeds  and 
delights  the  artistic  and  the  religious  aspirations  and  needs 
of  human  nature,  we  might  well  enough  dismiss  it  as  a  mere 
ideal, — a  fair  fabric  of  a  dreamer's  mind.  For  the  concrete 
realities  and  the  actual  occurrences  of  man's  cognitive  expe- 
rience are,  in  no  small  number,  difficult  to  harmonize  with 
such  an  ideal.  And  science  itself  discovers  more  difficulties 
as  its  progress  marks  the  solution  of  some  of  the  older  diffi- 
culties. It  is  far  harder  to-day,  for  example,  to  accept 

1  Compare  the  author's  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  chaps,  xri.  and  xvii.  : 
"  The  Teleology  of  Knowledge  ;  "  and  "  Ethical  and  ^Esthetical '  Momenta  '  of 
Knowledge." 


488  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

unqualifiedly  any  scheme  of  evolution  than  it  was  when  Dar- 
win first  set  forth  the  evidence  for  his  own  peculiar  scheme. 
It  is  far  harder  to-day  to  place  on  sound  empirical  data  a 
complete  theory  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  energy 
than  it  was  before  the  existence  of  so  many  mysterious  and 
hitherto  occult  forms  of  energy  (X-rays,  etc.)  was  demonstrated. 

The  constitution  and  meaning  of  this  community  of  all 
particular  known  existences  is  at  no  time  wholly  clear. 
We  are  pleased  to  call  the  world  a  Cosmos,  an  orderly  and 
rational  totality.  The  older  scientific  conception  was  that 
of  a  machine,  such  as  physics  can  understand ;  then  of  a 
molecular  and  atomic  mechanism ;  but  the  newer  scientific 
conception  corresponds  rather  to  the  biological  ideal  of  an 
organism.  Innumerable  exceptions,  which  may  rightly  con- 
stitute objections,  to  this  view  may  undoubtedly  be  noted  in 
every  department  of  scientific  knowledge.  And  perhaps 
there  is  much  —  even  the  far  greater  part  —  of  the  World's 
Being  which  is  never  to  be  understood,  or  made  object  of 
cognition,  by  mortal  man.  Nevertheless,  the  confidence  of 
man  in  this  ideal  construction  of  the  totality  of  selves  and 
things  remains  undiminished.  Nay,  it  is  rather  being  con- 
stantly confirmed.  That  this  artistic  and  religious  concep- 
tion of  the  world  is  the  true  conception,  and  that  the  whole 
vast  complex  of  things  and  selves,  whether  now  known,  or  to 
be  known,  or  forever  undiscoverable  by  man,  is  a  Unity  of 
Reality,  the  metaphysical  system  we  have  been  advocating 
would  be  the  last  to  deny  or  contest;  for  this  conception 
assumes  the  actuality  of  the  Ideal. 

It  is  commonly  thought  that  the  ethico-religious  view  of 
the  world  —  its  nature,  origin,  meaning,  and  destiny — makes 
wholly  extraordinary  demands  on  imagination  and  faith ;  it 
is,  therefore,  in  some  peculiar  way  a  piece  of  anthropomorphic 
idealizing.  This  may  well  enough  be  emphatically  denied. 
Anthropomorphic  such  a  view  certainly  is ;  but  it  is  not  neces- 
sarily more  so  than  is  the  current  scientific  view.  Ethics, 


THE   ACTUALITY  OF   THE  IDEAL  4891 

aesthetics,  and  the  philosophy  of  religion  belong  to  the  phi- 
losophy  of  the  Ideal.  But  no  one  of  these  can  be  separated 
from  its  roots  in  the  concrete  realities  of  man's  daily  experi- 
ence, whether  with  himself  or  with  material  things.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  so-called  scientific  ideal  of  the  world  as  a 
whole,  of  nature  at  large,  is  by  no  means  wholly  based,  by 
strictly  valid  processes  of  reasoning,  on  indubitable  cogni- 
tions of  reality.  But  man,  in  the  unity  of  his  own  being, 
progressively  establishes  a  firmer  grasp  upon  the  great  truth 
that  this  World  as  a  Whole,  this  Nature  written  with  an 
impressive  capital,  is  to  be  understood  only  as  it  is  the  actu- 
alization, in  time,  of  the  Ideal. 

The  system  of  selves  and  of  things,  regarded  as  a  total 
complex  of  all  real  existences  and  of  all  actual  transactions 
within  or  between  them,  is  the  "  actualization  of  the  Ideal." 
That  is  to  say,  the  Reality  of  It  as  a  Whole,  as  a  Unity  of 
some  sort,  is  known  and  is  conceivable  only  as  the  actuality 
of  One  Will  which  differentiates  its  activities  according  to 
its  own  consciously  recognized  ideas.  This  system,  thus  con- 
sidered as  an  independent  and  "  uncreate "  totality,  is  cog- 
nizable, or  conceivable,  only  as  an  Absolute  Self.  In  saying 
this  we  reaffirm  the  statement  which  was  formerly  made  as 
the  result  of  approaching  the  subject  through  a  detailed  criti- 
cism of  the  categories. 

Two  subordinate  problems  now  require,  in  conclusion,  a 
more  careful  consideration.  These  are,  first,  the  problem 
involved  in  the  application  of  the  conception  of  conscious- 
ness (or  of  any  derived  or  allied  conceptions)  to  the  World 
as  a  whole ;  and,  second,  the  problem  as  to  the  more  appro- 
priate ways  of  conceiving  those  relations  which  exist  between 
this  Absolute  Self  and  each  one  of  the  particular  beings, 
or  between  this  Absolute  Self  and  the  World  regarded  as  a 
complex  of  such  particular  beings.  The  first  of  these  prob- 
lems may  be  briefly  despatched  in  this  connection  ;  both  be- 
cause its  answer  has  already  been  virtually  given  or  assumed^ 


490  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

over  and  over  again,  and  also  because  the  more  important 
phases  of  the  answer  involve  the  discussion  of  connected 
questions  in  ethics,  esthetics,  and  the  philosophy  of  religion. 

"  To  be  conscious "  cannot,  as  Lotze  seems  to  affirm,  be 
made  the  equivalent  of  "to  be  real;"  if,  under  the  concep- 
tion of  consciousness,  we  include  every  form  and  phase  of  it, 
-and  if  we  also  disregard  the  different  degrees  and  spheres  of 
reality.  Neither  is  it  true,  as  Hegelism  seems  to  assert, 
that  conceptual  thinking  (das  greifende  Denken)  is  the  equiv- 
alent of  all,  even  of  the  highest  reality.  Psychologists  need 
the  word  "  consciousness  "  for  the  bare  existence  of  psychic 
fact,  whether  such  fact  be  the  sensation  just  arisen  above 
the  threshold,  or  the  most  obscure  form  of  pleasure-pain, 
nearly  or  quite  void  of  cognitive  content ;  or  the  forthputting 
of  a  simple  and  uni-motived  deed  of  will.  But  to  realize 
one's  self  by  one's  own  cognitive  ideas  in  the  pursuit  of  one's 
•chosen  ends,  —  this  is  precisely  what  it  is  for  a  Self  really  and 
truly  to  be.  And  reversing  this  equation,  in  fidelity  to  all 
man's  most  indubitable  experience,  it  is  truth  to  say:  There  is 
no  reality  knowable  or  conceivable  by  man  which  has  not,  as 
its  explanation  and  ground,  the  reality  of  a  cognitive  and 
self-active  Will. 

Let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  at  this  point.  It  is  indeed 
necessary  to  elevate  consciousness  above  the  grade  of  mere 
psychic  fact  in  order  to  find  in  consciousness  the  guaranty 
and  necessary  characteristic  of  the  presence  of  reality.  There 
may  be  many  conscious  feelings  which,  considered  as  mere 
occurrences,  do  not  signify  the  reality  of  existences  corre- 
sponding to  them,  or  even  of  those  "  streams  of  conscious- 
ness "  in  which,  as  psychic  facts,  the  conscious  feelings  occur. 
But  whatever  is  not  both  u  of"  and  "  to  "  some  self-active  will 
that  is  directed  by  conscious  ideas,  has  no  cognizable  reality 
at  all ;  and  to  affirm  reality  of  it  is  to  set  up  the  ghost  of  an 
abstraction  and  worship  the  abstraction  as  an  actualized 
ideal. 


THE   ACTUALITY  OF   THE  IDEAL  491 

For,  here  again,  the  mind  of  man  is  not  following  a  doubt- 
ful chain  of  argument  which  by  a  tedious  and  endless  regressus 
takes  it  to  seek  refuge  in  the  hypothesis  of  one  original  infinite, 
creative  Mind.  It  is,  the  rather,  interpreting,  with  fuller 
insight,  whatever  is  about  it  on  every  hand,  whatever  is  given 
to  it  in  every  perception  of  the  senses  and  inference  of  intel- 
lect. It  is  "  minding  "  its  own  datum.  The  datum  is  not  a 
portion  of  "  brute,  inanimate  matter,"  or  a  centre  of  mere 
forces,  or  a  mathematical  abstraction,  or  a  contentless  void. 
Its  datum  is  a  reality,  self-active,  ceaselessly  forming  itself  in 
intelligible  relations  to  other  beings.  Its  datum  is  an  actual 
Thing. 

But  every  individual  thing,  as  given  to  man  to  know,  is  but 
a  pulse,  a  temporary  throb,  in  the  great  life  of  Nature.  In  It, 
this  thing  and  we  who  observe  it  "  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being."  And  when  we  give  to  ourselves  and  to  things 
these  unifying  relations  to  one  another  and  to  a  common 
ground,  we  speak  in  terms  of  our  own  higher  self-conscious- 
ness, as  being  ourselves  self-conscious  wills  that  guide  our- 
selves by  consciously  accepted  ideals.  Unless  we  transfer 
to  nature  the  meaning  which  our  self-conscious  and  active, 
cognitive  life  imparts  to  our  words,  the  words  themselves 
are  meaningless.  Reality  that  is  not  grounded  in  conscious 
life,  or  that  is  not  the  expression  of  that  life,  is  no  reality, 
is  nought,  is  not.  And  there  is  no  trick  shabbier,  whether 
employed  by  science  or  by  philosophy,  than  to  use  the  terms 
of  such  consciousness,  apply  them  to  particular  things  or  to 
the  World  as  a  Whole,  and  then  deny  the  essential  import  of 
both  terms  and  their  application. 

"  Soul  is  vastly  larger  than  consciousness,"  says  a  recent 
writer l  on  the  "  early  Sense  of  Self,"  and  "  the  highest  powers 
are  those  that  spring  from  roots  that  start  deepest  down  in 
the  scale  of  life.  Consciousness  is  as  different  from  mind  as 

1  See  a  pamphlet  on  "  Some  Aspects  of  the  Early  Sense  of  Self,"  by  G. 
Stanley  Hall. 


492  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

froth  is  from  beer,  and  the  syllabub  of  some  of  its  exploiters 
and  promoters  suggests  the  mediaeval  barber's  apprenticeship, 
which  ended  when  the  tyro  could  make  two  tierces  of  foam 
from  two  ounces  of  soap."  This  is  true  if  it  be  meant  to  deny 
that  merely  to  seem  to  another  to  be  a  sort  of  centre  for  the 
occurrence  of  psychic  facts,  bare  "  consciousness,  as  such,"  is 
not  enough  to  constitute  the  substance  of  a  real  Self.  But  if 
it  be  meant  that  consciousness  in  general  is  to  the  reality  of 
the  Self,  or  to  all  Reality,  as  4i  froth  to  beer,"  then  nothing 
further  from  the  profoundest  truth  of  philosophy  than  this 
can  possibly  be  said. 

The  categories  themselves  are  the  essential  and  unchanging 
forms  of  cognitive  consciousness ;  and  they  are  the  necessary 
forms  of  all  known  reality  as  well.  Therefore,  we  do  not 
have  to  rise  up  from  reality,  or  stoop  down  to  reality,  in  order 
to  find  consciousness.  Those  forms  of  the  actual,  without 
which  no  Self  and  no  Thing  can  be,  are  all  forms  of  Will 
directed  and  determined  by  ideas.  So  that  the  progress  of 
human  thought  is  not  from  the  conscious,  as  a  secondary 
product,  or  mere  advent,  to  the  unconscious  as  its  source  or 
ground.  Neither  —  we  repeat  it  once  again  —  is  the  progress 
of  human  thought  a  chain  of  argument  from  that  which  is 
now  unconscious,  back  to  the  conscious  in  some  far-off  space 
and  remote  time.  But  the  movement  of  reflective  thinking 
is  from  the  phenomenon  as  it  appears,  a  conscious  process  in 
us,  to  the  reality  which  is  our  own  self-conscious  life ;  and 
this  same  movement  of  reflective  thinking  becomes  the  valid 
but  indirect  recognition  of  that  One  Reality  of  whose  self- 
conscious  Life  both  the  thing  and  our  self  is  the  manifestation. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  WORLD  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE 

ANY  attempt  to  specify  relations  as  existing  in  reality 
between  the  world  and  the  Absolute,  or  (to  use  the  language 
of  religious  faith)  between  the  world  and  God,  brings  upon 
the  student  of  systematic  metaphysics  some  of  his  most  diffi- 
cult problems.  But  the  difficulty  which  attaches  itself  to  the 
solution,  and  even  to  the  discussion,  of  these  problems  is  not 
chiefly  speculative.  If  one  felt  at  liberty  to  argue  the  case 
quite  irrespective  of  ethical  and  religious  considerations,  one 
might  hope  at  least  to  attain  a  fair  amount  of  consistency  in 
one's  opinions,  of  solidarity  in  one's  system.  But  to  embody 
in  a  theory  of  reality  those  distinctions  which  seem  to  separ- 
ate the  concrete  and  manifold  existences  from  the  Absolute 
One,  is  apt  to  result  either  in  the  conception  of  a  world  that 
is  devoid  of  reality,  or  in  the  conception  of  an  Absolute  that 
lacks  just  those  characteristics  which  "  absoluteness  "  necessa- 
rily requires.  While  to  identify  throughout  the  world  and 
the  Absolute  too  often  results  in  the  complete  destruction  of 
the  most  valuable  conceptions  entertained  by  men  in  the  inter- 
ests of  morals  and  religion. 

The  history  of  metaphysical  systems  shows  how  often  they 
have  divided  themselves  over  the  question:  What  are  those 
relations,  in  reality,  which  the  world  sustains  to  the  Abso- 
lute ?  This  same  history  also  shows  that  the  discussion  of 
the  question  has  been  accompanied  by  not  a  few  charges, 
often  acrimonious,  against  the  consequences  for  conduct  and 
faith  which  seemed  to  flow  from  these  different  answers. 


494  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Pantheism,  and  a  materialistic  or  an  idealistic  Monism,  has 
generally  been  accused  by  Dualism  (whether  of  the  so-called 
"  common-sense  "  or  the  philosophic  variety)  of  depreciating 
the  practical  interests  of  mankind.  But  Dualism  has  never 
been  able  to  establish  any  such  conception  of  the  Absolute,  or 
of  God  as  the  World-Ground,  as  would  afford  a  lasting  satis- 
faction to  the  undeniable  speculative  interests  of  human- 
ity. In  general,  those  systems  of  metaphysics  which  have  set 
a  high  value  on  consistency  of  thinking  and  on  a  certain  solid- 
arity of  speculative  conclusions,  have  espoused  a  doctrine  of 
the  Absolute  which  appeared  to  minimize  or  to  destroy  the 
reality  of  the  world  of  finite  selves  and  finite  things.  But 
those  systems  which  have  exhibited  most  tenderness  in  deal- 
ing speculatively  with  particular  existences,  have  been  com- 
paratively lax  and  unsatisfactory  in  their  doctrine  of  the 
Absolute  as  the  alone  World-Ground. 

Of  late  there  has  arisen  an  increased  insistence  on  the 
value,  for  philosophy,  of  the  permanent  emotional  and  prac- 
tical considerations.  This  is,  partly,  a  reaction  from  the 
extravagant  claims  of  modern  science  to  furnish  all  that 
man  needs  for  the  deepest  satisfaction  of  his  intellectual 
curiosity  and  his  practical  necessities.  It  is  also,  partly,  in 
antagonism  to  those  systems  of  philosophical  Absolutism 
which  satisfied  temporarily,  but  which  have  already  ceased 
to  satisfy.  Among  them  undoubtedly  the  system  of  Hegel 
is  most  prominent.  This  attempt  at  an  emotional  and  prac- 
tical philosophy  is  directly  born  of  the  agnosticism  which 
followed  the  Kantian  Critique ;  although  it  often  expresses 
scanty  respect  for  —  as  it  generally  knows  little  of  —  the 
meaning  of  this  Critique.  Its  proposal  is  thus  expressed: 
"  Let  us  select  such  few  principles  of  philosophy  as  best 
satisfy  human  feelings  and  afford  the  best  helps  in  the  life  of 
human  conduct ;  the  others  may  go,  for  they  are  vain  logo- 
machies of  mere  speculators  in  metaphysics  and  theology." 
To  serve  as  a  rallying  cry  for  a  new  party,  as  though  this 


THE   WORLD  AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  495 

metaphysical  subterfuge  were  some  nineteenth-century  dis- 
covery, this  proposal  is  called  the  "  philosophy  of  Pragma- 
tism," or  by  some  other  similar  name.  To  the  man  of  insight 
it  is,  however,  perfectly  clear  that  this  recent  attempt  is  only 
one  among  many  attempts  so  to  conceive  of  the  relations  of 
finite  beings  and  the  Absolute,  as  to  save  the  ethical  and  re- 
ligious concernments  involved.  So  far  forth  the  "  philosophy 
of  Pragmatism "  is  commendable.  But  inasmuch  as  this 
particular  proposal  lies  along  the  line  of  getting  the  largest 
result  from  the  least  amount  of  reflective  thinking,  we  may 
well  hesitate  about  calling  it  philosophy  at  all.  Philosophy 
—  yes,  even  metaphysics  —  is  genial  and  sympathetic;  and  it 
may  be  most  tender  in  its  treatment  of  moral  and  religious 
issues.  But  it  seeks  the  true  and  the  self-consistent.  Its 
method  is  not  that  of  syncretism.  Its  issue  is  not  determined 
when  it  has  pleased  men  with  picturesqueness  of  imagination 
and  abundance  of  good  feeling;  neither  does  it  mistake 
rhetoric  for  philosophizing. 

There  are  certain  preliminary  considerations  drawn  from 
the  number  of  those  already  discussed,  whose  bearing  upon 
the  problem  of  this  chapter  is  most  important.  They  are 
chiefly  the  following  four  :  First,  every  stage  and  every  form 
of  human  knowledge  —  including  that  which  seems  most 
purely  dialectical  or  philosophic  —  is  dependent  upon  impulses 
and  activities  of  an  emotional  and  voluntary  order.  No 
scientific  cognition  is  free  from  these  impulses ;  what  is  called 
"  science  "  is  never  a  merely  intellectual  achievement,  never 
an  affair  of  "  pure "  reasoning  from  grounds  of  unbiased 
observation  by  the  senses.  Knowledge  always  involves  an 
emotional  and  active  attitude  of  the  entire  self  toward  its 
object.  What  the  philosopher  knows,  or  thinks  he  knows, 
about  the  Absolute  and  about  its  relations  to  the  complex  of 
particular  existences,  is  necessarily  and  rightly  influenced  by 
ethical,  aesthetical,  and  religious  feelings  and  practical  neces- 
sities. This  influence,  however,  does  not  contribute  to  the 


496  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

exclusion  of  thinking  —  as  thorough,  penetrating,  and  con- 
sistent as  thinking  can  possibly  be  made.  For  if  mere  think- 
ing is  not  knowledge,  neither  is  mere  feeling,  however  noble, 
nor  mere  "  will  to  believe,"  however  well  intentioned. 

Second :  metaphysics  is  obligated  to  spend  all  its  construc- 
tive resources  upon  the  problem  of  the  relations  of  the  world 
and  the  Absolute.  At  this  problem  it  must  work  diligently 
and  continuously,  in  the  interests  of  increased  clearness, 
comprehensiveness,  and  self-consistency.  The  philosopher 
-can  no  more  properly  relinquish  his  claim  upon  this  than 
upon  any  other  important  right ;  he  can  no  more  creditably 
refuse  to  discharge  this  than  any  other  of  his  most  essential 
obligations.  But  what  is  this  metaphysics  that  undertakes  to 
arbitrate  a  dispute  over  so  difficult  problems  ?  It  is  only, 
when  finished  and  at  its  best,  a  "  theory  of  reality."  Like 
any  other  theory  it  must  submit  to  be  tested  by  the  facts  of 
•cognitive  experience.  Now  we  know  that  we  ourselves  do 
really  exist,  that  other  selves  really  exist,  and  that  non-self- 
like  things  exist.  All  man's  knowledge  starts  from  the 
same  roots  in  his  experience  with  actual  selves  and  actual 
things.  We  know  also  that  man  is  an  ethical  and  religious 
being  (if  the  words  "  ethical "  and  "  religious  "  be  defined  in 
accordance  with  the  facts) ;  and  that  some  sort  of  reality, 
freedom,  and  scope  for  hopes,  fears,  aspiration,  etc.,  toward 
those  ideals  with  which  the  philosophy  of  conduct  and  of 
religion  deals,  must  be  admitted  as  belonging  among  the 
plainest  facts  of  man's  historical  development.  Metaphysics 
as  a  system,  as  a  theory  of  reality,  cannot  deny  such  facts 
without  destroying  part  of  its  own  foundations  in  actuality. 
System  is  not  true,  if  it  leaves  these  facts  out  of  its  ac- 
count; or  if  it  misrepresents  and  misinterprets  these  facts. 

Third :  the  very  use  of  the  words,  the  world  and  the 
Absolute,  or  the  world  and  God,  necessarily  implies  a  duality 
of  conceptions.  The  World  and  the  Absolute,  the  World 
-and  God,  —  the  very  proposal  to  argue  as  to  the  more  precise 


THE  WORLD  AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  497 

meaning  of  this  terminology,  implies  some  sort  of  relatedness 
between  two  conceptions.  Even  if  the  conclusion  of  the  argu- 
ment be  some  scheme  to  identify  the  two  throughout,  —  the 
affirmation  that  the  world  is  the  Absolute,  is  God,  — we  do 
not  escape  the  use  of  the  category  of  relation.  The  world  = 
the  Absolute  ;  a+b+c+d  .  .  .  oo  =  X,  is  an  equation ;  and 
the  idea  of  an  "  equation "  is  a  relation.  Or  if  it  be  con- 
cluded that  these  two  are  only  different  aspects  of  the  One 
Reality,  different  ways  of  expressing  essentially  the  same 
truth,  still  the  mind  is  obliged  to  consider  how  these  "  as- 
pects "  (these  "  ways  of  regarding  and  expressing  ")  them- 
selves stand  related. 

And,  fourth,  under  the  term  Absolute  we  cannot  under- 
stand, much  less  conceive  of,  the  absolutely  "  Unrelated." 
Neither  knowledge,  nor  imagination,  nor  thought,  nor  envis- 
agement  of  any  kind,  can  present  the  mind  of  man  with  that 
which  is  out  of  all  relations.  The  path  to  such  being  lies 
neither  through  mental  representation,  nor  "  intellectual  in- 
tuition," nor  vague  emotion,  nor  dialectical  process,  nor  infer- 
ence. Conjecture  and  logic,  fancy  and  faith,  are  equally 
impotent  here.  Neither  is  the  Absolute  to  be  brought  before 
the  mind  as  the  Unrelated,  in  the  form  of  a  so-called  "  nega- 
tive conception."  For  even  to  negate  is  to  relate,  and  negation 
is  itself  a  relation ;  nay,  it  is  often  a  complex  of  more  or  less 
important  relating  judgments,  all  of  which  have  a  positive 
content  of  definite  relations. 

If  by  "  the  Absolute "  it  is  meant  to  cover  a  unity  which 
has  no  relations  outside  of  its  "  self,"  —  as  is  sometimes  so 
significantly  said ;  even  then,  and  all  the  more  emphatically, 
the  mind  is  dwelling  upon  certain  internal  relations  that 
define  in  terms  of  experience  the  absoluteness  of  the  Being  to 
which  the  word  must  be  applied.  Could  this  conception  be 
so  reduced  as  to  make  it  the  equivalent  of  Nought ;  even  then 
the  mind  would  not  be  conceiving  of  the  Unrelated,  in  a 
merely  negative  fashion.  For  "  nought "  is  related  to  any 

32 


498  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

particular  one,  or  to  the  sum-total  of  particulars,  as  its  oppo- 
site, as  that  which  is  not  what  the  other  is.  Nought  itself  is 
not  conceived  of  as  the  absolutely  unrelated.  The  swelling 
of  vague  feeling,  the  stirring  of  inchoate  apprehensions, 
and  even  the  sensuous  appreciation  of  merely  physiological 
changes,  which  is  produced  in  some  minds  by  this  word  when 
writ  large  and  begun  with  a  capital,  are  all  forms  of  the 
being  in  relation  to  us  of  that  for  which  the  word  is  made  to 
stand.  Mere  size  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  solution  of  the 
problem  of  the  nature  and  relations  of  Absolute  Being. 

"  A  sphere  is  but  a  sphere  ; 
Small,  Great,  are  merely  terms  we  bandy  here  ; 
Since  to  the  spirits'  absoluteness  all 
Are  like." 

Any  theory  of  reality  which  grasps  firmly  and  holds  con- 
sistently to  these  four  propositions  will  find  the  task  of  out- 
lining the  relations  of  the  world  and  the  Absolute  by  no 
means  hopeless  from  the  start.  It  is  indeed  a  task  which 
cannot  be  accomplished  even  to  the  temporary  satisfaction  of 
the  individual  thinker,  without  invoking  the  manifold  helps 
of  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  religion.  For  the  ethical  character, 
and  the  artistic  skill,  and  the  loving  sovereignty  of  the 
Absolute,  are  in  the  world  of  particular  existences,  because  of 
the  relations  in  which  the  Absolute  eternally  stands  to  this 
world.  And  when  men  get  the  clearer  light  upon  these 
relations,  and  so  the  deeper  and  finer  insight  into  the  nature 
of  the  Absolute,  they  call  Him  God,  and  worship  and  serve 
Him  as  their  Divine  Redeemer  and  Friend.  This  is  because 
they  then  know  the  Absolute  as  so  related  to  all  selves  and  to 
all  things  that  He  is  the  inspirer,  the  source  and  the  type  of 
all  that  is  really  good,  in  conduct,  art,  and  religion.  The 
relation  of  the  Absolute  to  the  world  is  then  recognized  as 
that  of  the  holy,  all-beautiful,  and  all-worshipful  One  to  the 
multitude  of  particular  beings  who  have  their  life  and  their 
reality  only  as  being  "  in  Him." 


THE  WORLD   AND  THE^ABSOLUTE  499 

While  speculative  philosophy  cannot  fill  out,  with  such 
richness  of  content  and  practical  helpfulness,  the  conception 
of  the  Absolute,  it  can  have  something  to  say  that  does  not 
leave  this  conception  in  the  "death-kingdom"  of  mere  ab- 
stractions. The  Absolute  is,  indeed,  known  to  the  most  pro- 
found of  metaphysicians  only  as  "  in "  the  world  and  as 
"  related  to  "  the  world.  For  the  speculative  thinking  of  the 
philosopher,  as  truly  as  for  the  "  plain  man's  consciousness," 
the  World-Ground  can  never  be  identified  with  the  Unrelated. 

It  will  be  the  purpose  of  this  closing  chapter  of  a  theory  of 
reality  that  is  not  complete  in  itself  but  that  only  lays  the 
foundations  upon  which  ethics,  art,  and  religion,  may  build 
their,  superstructure,  briefly  to  define  its  fundamental  position 
respecting  the  relations  of  the  Absolute  and  the  World.  Its 
position,  in  a  word,  is  this :  all  the  relations  that  exist 
amongst  the  particular  existences  of  the  world  have  their 
Ground  in  the  Being  of  the  Absolute ;  and  all  these  relations 
are  but  concrete  and  particular  instances  of  that  all-embracing 
relation  in  which  the  Absolute  stands  to  the  world  as  being  its 
Ground.  There  are  no  relations  conceivable,  or  possible,  that 
do  not  have  their  sources  and  the  guaranty  of  their  actuality 
in  the  Absolute ;  and  this  eternal  and  unchangeable  relation 
to  the  world  includes  and  explains  all  particular  relations. 

In  illustrating  this  view,  however,  no  one  of  the  four  truths 
which  have  already  been  stated  must  be  left  out  of  the 
account.  The  reality  of  the  world,  considered  as  a  complex 
of  actually  existing  selves  and  things,  must  not  be  denied  or 
minimized.  The  actuality  of  the  relations,  or  terms  of  relating, 
under  which  human  knowledge  brings  together  this  world  and 
its  absolute  Ground,  must  also  be  held  in  good  faith.  Never 
for  an  instant  must  the  thinker  deceive  himself  by  trying 
mentally  to  represent  the  Absolute  as  the  equivalent  of  the 
absolutely  "Unrelated."  And,  in  the  work  of  elaborating 
theory,  the  interests  of  ethical  and  religious  emotions  and 
practical  needs  must  not  be  left  unsatisfied. 


500  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Theoretical  views  as  to  the  relations  of  finite  beings  to  the 
Absolute  commonly  err  in  one  of  two  directions.  They  give 
meanings  to  the  terms  they  employ  for  summarizing  these 
relations  which  do  not  agree  well  with  the  conclusions  of  a 
critical  and  sympathetic  analysis  of  the  categories  ;  or  they 
assume,  by  employing  some  one  or  more  of  such  terms,  to 
exhaust  the  entire  content  of  the  complete  philosophical  doc- 
trine of  these  relations.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  their  use  of 
words  does  not  correspond  to  the  true  and  ultimate  values  of 
the  words  themselves,  as  these  values  are  determined  by 
metaphysical  criticism  and  as  they  have  their  proper  place  in 
metaphysical  system ;  or  on  the  other  hand,  the  conclusions 
they  reach,  while  true  so  long  as  they  are  held  to  be  incom- 
plete and  partial,  become  false  when  considered  as  complete 
and  all  inclusive. 

Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  relation  between  the  totality 
of  finite  existences  and  the  Absolute  is  resolved  into  identity, 
or  into  some  form  of  emanation.  The  complex  of  known  and 
knowable  particular  beings  is  made  indistinguishable  from  the 
Absolute ;  the  many,  regarded  collectively  as  the  All,  is  self- 
same with  the  One.  The  World  is  the  Absolute  ;  and  by  the 
Absolute  we  mean  the  All-One.  This  is  what  is  generally  un- 
derstood by  pantheism,  in  its  simplest  and  crudest  form.  Or, 
again,  the  complex  of  known  and  knowable  beings  emanates, 
either  as  a  timeless  procedure  or  throughout  unending  time, 
from  the  Absolute,  its  Ground.  The  process  of  becoming 
which  the  world  exhibits  to  us  is  a  sort  of  necessary  "  drawing 
forth"  of  particular  beings  from  the  inscrutable  but  univer- 
sal source  of  them  all.  Being  in  general,  by  a  mechanical 
process,  becomes  particular  beings,  etc.  Now  customarily  both 
these,  and  all  similar  views,  show  a  complete  lack  of  lucidity 
and  speculative  value,  while  they  make  sad  havoc  with 
practical  interests,  unless  the  conceptions  fundamental  to 
them  have  been  critically  examined  and  accurately  defined. 
What  is  meant  by  "  identity,"  or  "  emanation,"  as  specifying 


THE  WORLD  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE       501 

relations  that  actually  exist  between  the  world  and  the 
Absolute  ?  The  answer  to  this  and  to  all  similar  questions, 
can  be  satisfactory  only  when  the  search  for  it  has  taken  us 
back  to  the  criticism  of  the  categories. 

To  restate  the  conclusion  to  which  the  valid  necessities  of 
metaphysical  system  seem  to  impel  reflective  thinking:  All 
the  fundamental  relations  which  man's  cognitive  experience 
recognizes  as  existing  between  the  different  beings  —  selves 
and  things  —  of  the  world  have  their  Ground  in  the  Abso- 
lute ;  they  only  serve  the  more  fully  to  define  and  enrich 
the  conception  of  that  manifold  of  relations  in  which  all 
beings  stand  to  Him.  For  He  is  not  the  Unrelated,  but  the 
source,  the  guaranty,  the  actuality  of  all  relations.  This 
general  position,  with  its  affirmations  and  its  cautions,  we 
may  now  illustrate  as  applied  to  certain  selected  instances. 
These  instances  will  be  taken  from  three  main  classes  of 
relations. 

The  most  fundamental  and  comprehensive  of  all  is  that 
relation  —  or,  perhaps,  it  ought  rather  to  be  said,  that  com- 
plex of  relations  —  which  exists  between  the  knowing  subject 
and  his  object,  between  the  knower  and  what  is  known.  This 
relation  it  is  whose  fulfilment  unites  cognition  and  reality  in 
a  living  oneness  of  experience  ;  or  —  better  said  —  this 
relation  is  cognition  considered  as  an  actual  commerce  be- 
tween realities  that  are  u  moments "  of  one  Reality.1  All 
particular  instances  of  this  peculiar  relation  of  subject  and 
object  in  knowledge  have  their  source  and  final  explanation 
in  the  being  and  activity  of  the  Absolute ;  and  the  relation 
between  the  universal  complex  of  things  and  selves,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  Absolute,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  relation 
of  the  knowing  subject  to  his  object.  To  say,  God  is  omni- 
scient—  he  perfectly  knows  all  things,  and  all  selves,  and  all 
transactions  within  or  between  them  —  is  to  affirm  that  the 

1  Compare  the  conclusions  to  which  the  author  comes  in  the  later  chapters  of 
the  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge." 


502 


A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 


world  is  actually  in  relation  to  the  Absolute  Subject  as  his 
object. 

The  truth  that  all  beings,  their  relations,  and  their  transac- 
tions, are  objects  for  the  Absolute  as  subject,  is  not  a  matter 
merely  of  theological  speculation  or  of  purely  religious  faith  ;  it 
follows  indisputably  just  so  soon  as  we  understand  those  impli- 
cates concerning  the  constitution  and  regular  modes  of  the 
behavior  of  Reality  which  metaphysical  criticism  detects  and 
explains.  For  we  have  seen  that  such  criticism  establishes 
the  conception  of  the  world  as  self-explanatory,  so  to  speak, 
only  when  it  affirms  the  selfhood  of  the  world.  No  single 
real  thing,  and  no  actual  individual  self  can  become  an  object 
of  knowledge  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  able  to  make  the  knower 
recognize  in  it,  too,  the  fundamental  characteristics  of  self- 
hood. It  is  as  centres  of  an  activity  which  is  self -differentiat- 
ing in  ideal  forms  and  in  the  pursuit  of  ideal  ends,  that 
things  become  objects  of  knowledge  for  us.  If  now  the  dis- 
tinction is  made  real  between  the  mere  complex  of  all  objects 
of  knowledge  and  that  unifying  principle  which  makes  them 
all  something  quite  other  than  a  mere  complex,  the  world 
must  be  regarded  as  standing  in  the  relation  of  objects  to  this 
principle,  the  one  Subject  for  them  all.  Or,  in  other  words, 
a  real  unity,  embracing  all  known  and  knowable  objects, 
can  be  maintained  only  in  the  cognitive  consciousness  of  the 
Being  for  whom,  as  subject,  the  particular  realities  are  the 
objects. 

If  now  one  wishes  to  raise  the  conception  of  the  relation  of 
object  and  subject,  as  really  existing  between  the  world  and 
the  Absolute,  to  its  highest  terms,  this  result  can  be  achieved 
in  only  one  way.  The  perfection  of  the  conception  of  such  a 
relation  is  realized  in  that  most  complete  grasp  which  the 
knowing  Self  has  upon  the  here-and-now  being  of  its  own 
self.  "The  knowledge  of  things  remains  (for  us)  an  analogi- 
cal interpretation  of  their  apparent  behavior  into  terms  of 
a  real  nature  corresponding,  in  important  characteristics,  to 


THE  WORLD  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE  503 

But  "the  knowledge  of  Self  may  attain  an 
intuitive  penetration  to  the  heart  of  Reality."  Therefore 
this  "  immediate  knowledge  of  the  Self  by  itself  is,  in  actual- 
ity, the  realized  ideal  of  knowledge."  Nor  can  the  Abso- 
lute sustain  to  all  finite  beings  those  relations  which  its 
own  conception  demands  of  it,  unless  it  be  conceived  of 
as  realizing  —  eternally  and  perfectly  —  such  an  ideal  of 
knowledge. 

It  is  customary  for  those  who  take  the  lower  and  unphiloso- 
phical  point  of  view  to  regard  this  vast  universe,  with  all  its 
beings  and  the  innumerable  transactions  and  changing  relations 
amongst  them,  as  an  "  object"  indeed, but  as  an  object  that  is 
conceivably  separable  from  the  reality  of  any  conscious  subject, 
whose  object  it  is.  Thus  the  student  of  nature  transports 
himself  through  countless  ages  of  time  to  some  lofty  point  of 
view  from  which  to  survey  the  construction  of  the  greater 
Whole  ;  or  he  imagines  what  an  unlimited  increase  of  "  inter- 
iorness  "  and  penetrating  insight  would  show  to  him  concern- 
ing the  hidden  constitution  of  particular  things.  So  and  so  it 
all  went  on,  when  as  yet  no  conscious  mind  existed ;  when 
matter  was  wholly  "  brute  and  inanimate  ; "  when  the  eternal 
atoms  were  just  stirring  themselves  for  their  everlasting  task 
of  building  all  things  as  man  knows  them  now  to  have  been 
evolved  in  the  past.  This  world  is, —  although  in  embryo, 
to  be  sure ;  but  it  is  no  object  for  a  subject,  because  It  has  not 
yet  given  birth  to  a  subject ;  the  dawn  of  subjectivity  out  of  the 
objective  chaos  is  yet  to  come.  Only  the  bare  Being  of  Matter 
and  Force  is  assumed  to  be  "  on  hand  ; "  only  actual  crude 
"  stuff "  and  abstract  forms  and  laws  are  as  yet  real.  But  they 
are  going  henceforth,  without  any  assistance  from  ideas,  to 
make  a  world  in  which  ideating  beings  shall  finally  come  to 
exist.  And  of  these,  the  observer  is  one,  whose  ideas,  or 
purely  subjective  processes,  have  arrived  at  the  power  to 
represent  in  consciousness  the  true  objective  procedure  of  the 
-self-building  World.  This,  however,  is  absurd. 


504  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Who  can  deny,  however,  that  the  picture  which  the  well- 
equipped  student  of  nature  draws,  with  most  profuse  use  of  the 
written  or  spoken  word,  is  itself  the  object  of  his  own  thinking, 
feeling,  willing  Self  ?  This  picture,  surely,  has  its  only  reality 
in  being  object  for  him  as  its  subject ;  when  it  ceases  to  be  as 
the  construct  of  its  particular  subject,  it  ceases  from  being 
actual  at  all.  But  the  world  that  is  not  identical  in  existence 
with  the  picture,  and  of  which  the  picture  is  assumed  to  be 
representative,  does  not  thus  come  into  being  and  pass  away 
in  dependence  upon  this  individual  subject.  What  existence 
can  it  have,  however,  that  is  knowable  or  conceivable,  in 
complete  independence  of  a  cognitive  mind  ?  The  pictures 
which  some  other  mind,  in  the  present  scientific  age,  draws  of 
this  same  world,  or  the  pictures  which  the  students  of  nature 
will  be  able  to  draw  in  the  far-off  future  when  natural  science 
is  greatly  increased,  are  in  like  manner  dependent  for  their 
existence  —  each  one  —  upon  some  subject-Self.  But  what  is 
the  bond  that  unites  the  true  factors  of  all  the  separate  trans- 
itory pictures  of  the  world,  and  thus  constructs  a  possible 
knowledge  of  the  world  that  is  completely  and  absolutely 
true  ?  There  can  be  no  such  bond  except  the  activity  of  the 
Absolute,  considered  as  standing  to  the  world  in  the  relation 
of  a  knowing  Subject  for  which  all  the  particular  real  beings 
and  actual  transactions  are  the  object. 

In  vain  does  the  mind  attempt  to  escape  this  conclusion  by 
regarding  the  world  that  really  was  before  it  became  the 
object  of  some  cognitive  subject,  as  mere  Unity  of  Force  or 
blind  Will  (after  the  fashion  of  Mr.  Spencer  or  of  Schopen- 
hauer). For  the  entire  course  of  our  past  argument  has 
shown  that  Reality  can  neither  be  conceived  of,  nor  can  act- 
ually be,  mere  Force  or  mere  Will,  formless  and  helpless, 
because  possessing  no  principles  of  self-differentiating  as 
essential  to  its  own  actualizing.  Moreover,  a  Unity  of  Reality, 
even  when  conceived  of  in  the  most  meagre  of  terms,  is  still  act- 
ualized only  as  object  for  some  subject.  A  known  or  con- 


THE  WORLD   AND  THE  ABSOLUTE  505 

ceivable  world,  cannot  exist  as  a  total  Real,  except  as  the 
object  of  an  Absolute  Subject,  an  omniscient  mind. 

The  Absolute,  then,  is  related  to  all  finite  beings  as  the 
subject  is  related  to  the  immediate  object  of  its  cognitive 
consciousness.  If  one  chooses  to  retain  terms  that  are  mean- 
ingless unless  translated  into  conscious  experiences  one  may 
say  :  The  World,  considered  as  Absolute,  stands  to  the  World 
considered  as  a  mere  complex  of  individual  existences,  in  the 
relation  of  an  omniscient  subject  to  its  total  object.  But 
translated  into  the  language  of  experience  this  means  ;  God 
knows  all  that  is,  and  is  done,  in  the  world,  as  the  Self 
knows  its  own  being,  here  and  now  present  to  itself.  In  a 
word,  the  doctrine  of  the  Divine  omniscience,  as  applied  to 
the  totality  of  actual  existences,  follows  from  the  doctrine  of 
the  true  nature  of  knowledge  and  from  the  valid  theory  of 
reality  as  established  by  a  criticism  of  the  categories.  But 
that  class  of  relations  which  may  be  summarized  by  the 
terms,  subject  and  object,  does  not  exhaust  the  conception  of 
relations  as  actually  existing  between  the  world  and  the 
Absolute. 

And  when  the  metaphysician  limits  his  ontology  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  tenet,  that  the  complex  of  concrete  and 
particular  existences  has  its  reality  in  the  cognitive  con- 
sciousness of  the  World-Ground,  no  matter  how  skilfully  or 
comprehensively  he  frames  this  tenet,  he  is  sure  to  controvert 
important  facts  and  principles  which  are  deeply  rooted  in  man's 
experience  with  himself.  No  reality  is  fully  described  or 
exhaustively  defined,  as  existing  solely  under  the  relation  of 
knowing  subject  to  object  known.  The  very  terms,  subjective 
and  objective,  afford  only  the  barest  frame  work  for  actualiz- 
ing those  manifold  relations  in  which  I  stand  to  myself  and 
to  the  rest  of  the  world.  This  framework  requires  to  be 
filled  in  with  all  the  concrete  conditions  of  actuality,  with 
which  compliance  must  be  had  in  order  to  win  a  just  claim 
to  a  place  in  the  ranks  of  the  realities. 


506  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

The  world  is  related  to  the  Absolute  as  particular  realities 
are  related  to  the  One  Reality  which  is  their  common  Ground. 
The  relation  of  the  phenomenon  to  the  actuality  whose 
phenomenon,  or  manifestation,  it  is,  furnishes  warrant  only  for 
so  much  of  truth  as  there  is  in  the  doctrine  of  M&ya.  If  the 
mind  dwells  on  this  relation  as  a  truth,  it  is  impressed  with 
the  illusory  and  transitory  nature  of  all  things  and  of  all  souls. 
They  and  we  are  alike  appearances  —  phenomena.  To  our- 
selves, we  and  they  seem  but  as  matters  of  a  day.  Each 
individual  existence  is  cloud,  smoke,  vapor,  that  "  appeareth 
for  a  little  time  and  then  vanisheth  away."  So  the  Self 
betimes  appears  to  itself  ;  and  this  is  the  manifestation,  in  one 
set  of  its  real  aspects,  of  his  own  being  to  every  thoughtful 
man.  But  "  of "  what  is  this  manifestation  ?  It  is  of  the 
Self,  as  well  as  to  the  Self.  It  is  one  of  my  ways  of  making 
my  reality  known  to  itself.  As  we  have  seen  (chap,  ii.)  the 
actuality  of  the  Self  is  implied  in  the  appearance  as  indubitably 
as  is  its  phenomenal  character.  Thus,  too,  the  whole  complex 
of  selves  and  things  may  be  regarded  as  a  gross  sum  of  appear- 
ances ;  the  world  is  smoke  and  vapor  and  cloud  —  a  succes- 
sion of  phantoms  in  a  purely  subjective  space  and  time.  And 
"  we  are  moving  shadow  shapes."  Yes,  this  is  one  real  aspect 
of  the  world,  to  which  it  pleases  thought  at  times  to  direct 
attention.  It  has  its  own  value  and  its  own  truth.  But  again 
the  question  returns  :  Of  what  Reality  is  this  world  of  appear- 
ances the  phenomenon  ?  To  say  :  "  It  is  mere  phenomenon, 
bare,  ungrounded  and  uncaused  succession  of  appearances," 
involves  the  mind  in  such  absurdity  that  its  degree  cannot  be 
measured  in  words,  or  stated  otherwise  than  in  terms  which 
confute  it.  The  world  must,  then,  be  considered  as  the  suc- 
cession of  appearances,  or  of  phenomena,  whose  actuality  is 
the  eternal  Being  of  the  Absolute. 

It  is  the  actuality  of  this  relation  between  individual  exist- 
ences, considered  as  manifestations,  and  the  Absolute  considered 
as  their  real  Ground,  which  gives  to  ethics,  to  art,  and  to  religion 


THE  WORLD  AND   THE  ABSOLUTE  507 

much  of  their  appropriate  terminology.  Conscience  is  "  the 
voice  "  of  God.  The  beauties  and  grandeur  of  nature  evince 
a  Divine  beauty  and  sublimity.  Manifestation,  revelation, 
the  "  appearance  "  of  Deity  in  some  specific  form,  are  concep- 
tions which  grow  out  of  the  roots  of  this  genuine  and  thoroughly 
philosophic  as  well  as  universally  human  idea.  The  Absolute 
is  the  hidden,  the  unmanifested  One  ;  and  philosophy  has  made 
the  vain  attempt  to  consider  Him  as  the  "  Unrelated."  But 
now,  on  the  contrary,  all  things  and  all  selves,  in  their  mutual 
relations  and  historic  progress,  are  significant  of  that  wealth  of 
relations  in  which  the  Absolute  stands  to  all  the  phenomenally 
real.  The  world  —  in  the  most  comprehensive  possible  use 
of  that  word — is  God's  appearance,  his  self-revelation,  his 
"  phenomenon." 

And  to  all  particular  processes  of  change,  as  well  as  to  the 
specific  principles  of  becoming  which,  as  men  figuratively  say, 
"  rule  over  "  these  processes,  the  Absolute  stands  in  the  rela- 
tion of  the  One  Principle,  or  Source,  of  all  Becoming.  In  dis- 
cussing the  category  of  change  (chap,  vi.)  it  was  seen  that 
unprincipled  and  unregulated  change  —  mere  change  —  cannot 
afford  any  account  of  the  being  and  development  of  the  system 
of  minds  and  things.  The  very  claim  to  reality,  made  by  any 
particular  mind  or  thing,  implies  that  the  changes  which  it 
undergoes  are  under  the  control  of  principles  of  becoming. 
So  that  it  is  impossible  to  speak  of  the  world  as  a  vast  col- 
lection of  unrelated  and  unsystematized  changes,  or  of  its 
history  as  a  mere  succession  of  changing  states  that  happen 
without  reference  to  any  principles  of  change.  What  the 
mind  of  man  knows  as  the  result  of  growth  in  experience,  and 
more  specifically  and  comprehensively  as  the  result  of  the 
advance  of  science,  is  this :  Things  change  in  a  mutually 
determining  way.  Looked  at  as  a  passivity  or  receptivity  in 
things,  they  may  be  said  to  obey  the  laws  of  the  various 
becomings  which  are  induced  in  them.  Looked  at  as  an  activ- 
ity or  endeavor  of  things,  they  may  be  said  to  be  always  reach- 


508  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

ing  out  after  new  —  and  perhaps,  in  most  cases,  improved  — 
forms  of  manifesting  what  they  are,  and  what  they  can  do. 
But  looked  at  as  both  passive  and  active,  the  totality  of  things 
constitutes  a  world  of  changes,  a  sort  of  system  of  becomings  ; 
so  that  we  may  indicate,  however  imperfectly  and  dimly,  an 
important  truth  of  fact  by  saying  :  "  The  World  is  becoming 
thus  and  so  ; "  or  "  the  World  is  changing  in  the  direction  of 
this  or  that  idea,  which  sets  to  its  course  of  changes  a  sort  of 
goal." 

This  idea  of  a  system  of  changes,  or  becomings,  which  falls 
under  a  relatively  few  fundamental  laws,  or  supreme  control- 
ling principles,  is  the  essential  factor  in  the  modern  doctrine 
of  evolution.  It  is  so,  whether  that  doctrine  take  the  more 
definitively  scientific  shape  —  as,  for  example,  in  biological 
evolution  —  or  be  more  speculatively  constructed  as  a  com- 
prehensive philosophical  tenet.  Darwin  and  Spencer,  Weiss- 
mann  and  Schopenhauer,  alike  aim  at  the  discovery  of  the 
unchanging  principles  of  all  changes,  the  absolutes  that  are  in 
relation  to  the  becomings,  as  giving  to  the  different  forms  of 
becoming  their  inciting  and  inhibiting  ideas.  But  when  the 
thought  of  man  has  reached  the  heights  of  pride  and  ambition 
necessary  for  the  attempt  to  comprehend  the  Source  of  all 
these  principles  in  the  Being  of  the  World,  then  the  category 
of  identity  can  by  no  means  be  made  to  fill  the  place  of  the 
category  of  relation.  Mere  processes  of  becoming,  as  such, 
however  few  in  number  and  widely  distributed  over  the  realm 
of  minds  and  things,  do  not  afford  an  explanation  of  them- 
selves. They  are  still  only  descriptive  history  or  romantic 
story  of  the  order  of  the  phenomena  ;  they  constitute  neither 
a  true  cognition,  nor  a  defensible  theory,  of  Reality.  The 
principles  of  becoming  must,  indeed,  belong  to  the  beings  that 
undergo  the  processes  of  becoming;  for  principles  are  not 
themselves  entities  foreign  to  the  realities  which  recognize 
and  observe  the  principles.  But  when  all  changes  are  referred 
in  thought  to  a  Unity  of  Reality,  all  becomings  to  some  one 


THE   WORLD   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  509 

Principle  that  determines  them  all,  the  conception  of  this 
Unity,  of  this  one  Principle,  is  given  an  absoluteness  which 
does  not  belong  to  the  changes,  as  such. 

In  other  words,  all  evolutionary  theory  conceives  of  the 
world  and  the  Absolute  as  standing  in  the  relations  of  a  vast 
complex  of  coexistent  and  successive  changes  to  a  Ground 
that  somehow  decides  what  these  changes  shall  be,  but  does 
not  Itself  change.  All  the  becomings,  taken  in  their  rela- 
tions to  each  other  of  time,  space,  and  causation  =  a  world 
that  is  becoming,  —  a  system  of  minds  and  things  that  are 
connected  together  in  a  process  of  development.  The  princi- 
ple of  all  these  becomings,  considered  as  the  ideal  source  of 
them  all,  and  as  giving  the  laws  and  forms,  and  setting  the 
goals,  for  them  all  =  the  unchanging  Absolute.  This  Abso- 
lute, then,  stands  to  the  world  in  the  fixed  relation  of  an  ideal 
Principle  of  Becoming  to  all  the  particular  changes  which 
take  place,  however  caused  when  regarded  from  the  scientific 
point  of  view,  in  all  space,  and  throughout  all  time. 

What  sort  of  a  real  being  the  Absolute  must  be,  in  order  to 
constitute  the  sole,  ultimate  principle  of  becoming,  has  been 
made  clear  by  all  our  previous  discussion.  Only  an  Absolute 
Self,  whose  essential  and  unchanging  characteristics  are  those 
of  a  rational  and  free  Spirit,  can  fulfil  the  required  conditions. 
When,  then,  the  evolution  of  all  particular  beings,  minds  and 
things,  is  referred  to  this  Spirit  as  its  Ground,  it  is  not  meant 
that  the  Absolute  is  either  identical  throughout  with  the  sum- 
total  of  the  processes  of  change,  or  that  the  Absolute  is  itself 
undergoing  a  process  of  becoming.  What  is  most  fitly  meant 
cannot  be  discussed  in  detail  without  appeal  to  the  facts  and 
principles  of  ethics,  aesthetics  and  religion.  But  the  concep- 
tion afforded  by  our  theory  of  reality  shows  how  God  may  be 
at  the  same  time  neither  separate  from  the  world,  as  though 
he  had  left  it  to  itself,  nor  identified  with  the  world  consid- 
ered merely  as  a  system  and  unending  course  of  changes. 

The  advocate  of  that  form  of  metaphysics  which  is  called 


510  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

"  common-sense  dualism,"  or  "  physical  realism,"  is  apt  at  this 
point  to  interpose  an  objection.  To  regard  the  Absolute,  he 
says,  as  "  manifested  "  in  all  the  complex  of  finite  spirits  and 
things,  or  as  standing  to  this  complex  in  the  ideal  relation  of  a 
"  principle "  of  becoming,  tends  to  render  the  world  ghostly 
and  unreal.  On  the  contrary,  as  tested  by  the  standards  of 
cognitive  experience,  the  Absolute  is  to  be  considered  as  a 
"  manifestation  "  of  finite  spirit,  a  "  phenomenon  "  of  human 
development,  a  process  of  ideation  and  abstraction  within  the 
consciousness  of  the  individual  man.  There  is  truth  on  the 
side  of  this  objection,  so  long  as  these  terms  —  "  manifesta- 
tion," "  phenomenon,"  and  "  revelation,"  or  the  like  —  are 
held,  even  seemingly,  to  exhaust  the  content  of  the  relation* 
of  the  totality  of  finite  beings  and  the  Absolute.  But  the  es- 
sential point  in  the  theory  of  reality  we  are  maintaining  is 
precisely  this :  — All  relations  have  their  Ground  in  the  Unity 
of  Reality,  whose  name,  for  religion,  is  "  Almighty  God."  Just 
as  relation  must  itself  be  considered  as  the  "  mother  "  of  all 
the  categories,  so  the  Reality  which  is  known  under  the  terms 
of  all  these  categories  is  the  source  and  the  actualization  of  all 
the  fundamental  relations  covered  ly  the  categories. 

It  is  through  terms  expressive  of  "  force,"  "  causation,"  etc., 
that  the  actuality  which  seems  lacking  to  the  more  obviously 
ideal  forms  of  relation  is  given  back  to  the  world  of  finite 
spirits  and  finite  things.  It  is  as  "  centres  of  force,"  and  as 
being  themselves  capable  of  exercising  causative  influences 
upon  each  other  and  of  standing  in  causal  relations,  that  finite 
spirits  and  finite  things  are  considered  real.  When  things 
are  conceived  of  as  only  manifestations  of  an  underlying  or 
an  over-ruling  reality,  they  appear  to  have  only  an  ideal  ex- 
istence. Finite  spirits  and  finite  things  evince  their  reality  by 
doing  something  to  each  other,  according  to  the  amount  and 
kind  of  force  which  is  in  them,  and  under  those  observed 
formulas,  or  laws,  which  describe  the  ideal  terms  on  which  the 
doing  takes  place. 


THE  WORLD  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE  511 

So,  too,  can  the  Absolute  himself  vindicate  a  claim  to  reality 
and  establish  a  clear  title  to  be  somewhat  more  than  a  con- 
ception, only  by  an  exercise  of  force,  only  by  being  a  source 
and  a  principle  of  all  causal  relations.  The  relations  of  the 
Absolute  to  the  world  must  be  actualized  in  terms  of  force  \ 
the  One  Cause  must  interpenetrate  and  make  real  all  so- 
named  "  causal  "  relations.  This  is  what  philosophy  inter- 
prets modern  science  to  mean  when  it  regards  the  various 
forms  of  the  conservation  and  correlation  of  energy  as  apper- 
taining to  one  Force.  This  is  what  philosophy  understands 
science  to  assert  when  it  declares  the  quantum  of  this  energy 
to  be  unchanging.  The  different,  otherwise  separate,  and 
otherwise  unreal  existences  are  thus  bound  together  into  an 
actual,  as  distinguished  from  a  merely  conceptual,  unity  ;  for 
they  share  -together  in  the  bountiful  distribution  of  this  one 
Force. 

Indeed,  even  the  ghostliest  and  most  abstract  terms  which 
thought  can  employ  to  designate  hypothetical  relations' 
amongst  things  have  any  significance  only  as  they  hint  at 
the  realization  of  man's  ideas  of  force  and  of  causation.  No- 
thing can  enter  into  any  relation  with  anolher  thing,  or  have 
any  relation  entered  into  with  itself  by  other  things,  except  in 
so  far  as  it  is  the  possessor  and  the  distributor  of  force,  the 
partner  in  a  causal  transaction.  In  believing  this,  the  mind 
is  not  juggling  with  its  own  terms.  Even  the  most  obscure 
and  evanescent  manifestation  implies  both  the  energy  to- 
make  it,  and  the  energy  to  react  upon  it.  Only  forces  can 
be  the  responsible  sources  of  phenomena.  In  truth,  the 
relation  between  the  thing  and  its  manifestation,  between  the 
actuality  and  the  phenomenon,  is  the  most  original  and  typical 
instance  of  the  causal  relation.  The  essence  of  causation  is 
the  relation  of  appearances  to  "  that-which "  is  real.  In 
reality,  no  phenomenon  causes,  or  accounts  for,  another  phe- 
nomenon, —  both  being  considered  as  mere  phenomena ;  it  is- 
always  reality  that  energizes  to  produce  its  own  appropriate 


512 


A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 


phenomenon.     The   source   of  the  causal  relation  is  in  the 
mutually  inciting  and  reciprocally  limiting  activity  of  things. 

But  no  individual  being  is  possessed  of  inhibited,  unre- 
lated, or  unlimited,  force ;  neither  soul  nor  thing  is  a  cause 
of  any  change,  not  even  of  its  own  most  peculiar  and  dis- 
tinguishing phenomenon,  in  a  perfect  independence  of  all 
other  souls  and  things.  All  manifestations  of  energy  in  mind 
and  in  matter  are  relative  and  dependent.  They  sustain  in- 
escapable relations  to  the  constitution  of  the  being  whose 
energy  they  manifest ;  and  this  constitution  is  itself  a  child  of 
nature,  —  a  derived  being,  dependent  upon  relations  and 
activities  whose  existence  and  exercise  lie  beyond  any  par- 
ticular being's  control.  Give  and  take,  act  and  be  acted  upon ; 
—  this  is  the  law  for  all  concrete  and  individual  existences. 
Thus  they  actually  are, —  relatively  independent  and  yet  ab- 
solutely dependent;  they  are  self-centred  only  so  long  as 
they  both  continue  to  act  from  this  centre  and  also  to  find 
this  centre  reacted  upon.  "  Have  thy  force  in  thyself,  at 
thy  own  command  ;  be  really  a  force  "  —  such  is  the  horta- 
tion  which  proceeds  from  the  very  nature  of  the  Absolute 
Himself.  But  this  hortation  can  in  no  wise  abrogate  the 
truth  that  in  the  same  Absolute,  we  and  all  things  "  live, 
move,  and  have  our  being." 

Considered,  then,  as  relatively  independent  existences,  all 
selves  and  things  have  only  a  being  derived  from,  and  de- 
pendent upon,  the  Absolute  Being  of  God.  All  their  reality 
is  related  to  Him,  who  is  the  alone  absolute  Reality,  as  to  its 
source  or  ground.  All  the  forces  which  they  exercise,  and  of 
which  they  seem  to  be  possessed,  are  dependency  related  to 
the  one  inexhaustible  source  of  energy  ;  to  the  Being  of  the 
Absolute  regarded  as  omnipotent  Will.  Every  individual 
display  of  energy,  however  originating  in  that  complex  of 
changes  which  is  known  as  the  actual  history  of  the  world, 
has  this  twofold  character :  it  is  at  the  same  time  an  energy 
of  the  things  concerned,  and  so  to  be  classified  as  JT(heat), 


THE  WORLD   AND  THE   ABSOLUTE  513 

or  E  (electricity)  or  M  (magnetism),  as  having  the  quantity 
x,  or  ^,  and  as  due  to  a  concurrence  of  relating  circumstances 
comprised  under  the  formulas  m  or  n ;  but  it  is  also  the  ever- 
present  energy  of  the  Absolute,  to  which  all  the  forms  of 
energy  known  by  the  particular  sciences  are  dependently 
related,  as  having  in  IT  alone  their  source  and  their  ground. 
When  the  thing  acts,  God  acts.  Where  the  energies  stored 
in  the  different  portions  of  matter  are,  there  is  the  immanent 
and  omnipotent  Will  of  God. 

Nor  can  the  being  and  self-activity  of  particular  selves  be 
considered  as  otherwise  related  to  the  Being  and  Will  of  the 
Absolute.  We,  too,  have  life,  motion,  and  being,  "  in  Him." 
Even  when  I  will  to  assert  my  independence  of  the  compelling 
power  of  my  physical  environment,  or  —  if  you  please  —  to 
resist  and  to  defy  the  power  of  the  Almighty,  this  assertive, 
resisting,  and  defiant  will  of  mine  is  not  for  an  instant  able  to 
render  itself  independent  of  its  source.  The  source  of  my  will- 
power is  the  source  of  all  power  ;  it  is  the  Will  of  the  Absolute. 

How,  then  —  it  is  asked  with  commendable  eagerness  — 
can  the  freedom  and  true  personality  of  man  be  maintained 
in  such  a  way  as  to  conserve  the  inseparable  and  invaluable 
interests  of  ethics  and  of  religion  ?  The  question  is  perti- 
nent and  important.  No  theory  of  reality  which  does  not 
provide  positively  for  its  satisfactory  answer,  or  at  least 
refrain  from  making  such  an  answer  impossible,  can  long 
stand  the  test  of  man's  inclusive  experience.  For  the  facts 
on  which  the  interests  of  ethics  and  religion  repose  are  as 
undoubted  and  as  significant  as  are  any  of  the  facts  affirmed 
by  experience.  In  truth,  there  is  no  small  reason  for  the 
belief  that  knowledge  itself  reaches  the  fulfilment  of  its  own 
highest  significance  as  a  means  to  right  conduct  and  to  the 
life  of  religious  faith  and  devotion.  That  knowledge  cannot  be 
attained,  or  critically  considered,  without  emphasizing  its  own 
quasi-ethical  constituents  and  implications,  we  have  else- 
where shown  with  sufficient  detail. 

33 


A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

The  problem  of  the  relations  sustained  by  the  human  will, 
to  the  will  of  the  Absolute,  does,  indeed,  belong  more  speci- 
fically to  the  philosophy  of  ethics  and  of  religion.  It  cannot 
be  satisfactorily  discussed  by  general  metaphysics,  as  apart  of 
the  analytic,  critical,  and  systematic  treatment  of  the  categories. 
Metaphysics,  however,  has  a  certain  preparatory  work  to 
accomplish  with  reference  to  the  later  treatment  of  this  prob- 
lem. Two  or  three  of  its  principal  points  of  view  may  properly 
be  emphasized  here:  And,  first,  it  is  the  forms,  laws,  and 
ideal  ends,  of  any  particular  existence  which  define  the  more 
precise  nature  of  the  relations  sustained  by  each  such  exis- 
tence to  that  Absolute  Being  in  whom  they  all  have  their 
ground.  Dependent  on  Him  ceaselessly  and  without  excep- 
tion, all  beings  actually  are ;  but  different  beings  actualize  in 
far  different  ways  their  general  relation  of  dependence.  The 
forms,  laws  and  ideal  ends  realized  by  the  dependence  of 
human  selves  upon  the  Absolute  Self  are,  in  fact,  far  different 
from  the  forms,  laws,  and  ideal  ends  of  the  lower  animals, 
or  of  material  things.  Here  theory  cannot  controvert  facts  ; 
here  it  is  pre-eminently  necessary  that  theory  should  be  based 
upon  facts.  The  formal  conditions  of  man's  relations  to 
God  and  to  the  external  world  are  not  the  same  as  those  which 
control  the  relations  of  things  to  one  another  and  to  God.  The 
laws  of  the  human  psychical  life  are  not  a  mere  repetition  of 
physical  laws  or  of  the  laws  of  the  psychical  life  of  the  lower 
animals.  And  men  do  select  for  themselves,  and  do  actually 
follow,  ideal  ends  that  never  appear  in  the  consciousness  of  the 
lower  animals,  and  are  never  obviously  served  by  the  behavior 
of  things.  .  In  the  case  of  man  pre-eminently  and  perhaps 
also  in  the  case  of  the  lower  animals,  each  individual  in  the 
species  attains  a  position  in  reality  which  is  dependent  upon 
its  own  will ;  —  and  in  the  case  of  man, u  will "  means  a  more 
or  less  highly  developed  power  of  choosing  his  own  forms,, 
laws,  and  final  purposes.  Thus  man  reaches  a  high  degree 
of  relative  independence,  a  sphere  —  or,  if  you  will,  an 


THE  WORLD   AND   THE  ABSOLUTE  515 

amount,  of  reality  —  which  belongs  to  him  alone  among  all 
known  finite  existences.  But  this  does  not  take  the  human 
species,  or  the  individual  man  out  of  the  system  of  finite 
beings ;  nor  does  it  for  a  moment  break  the  thread  which 
tics  him  in  dependence  to  the  Will  of  the  Absolute. 

Second,  there  is  not  necessarily  any  more  contradiction 
involved  in  this  so-called  "  double  aspect"  of  the  relations  of 
man  to  God,  than  is  involved  in  the  consideration  of  all  parti- 
cular existences  from  both  the  scientific  and  the  ultimate,  or 
metaphysical,  points  of  view.  Two  of  H  unite  with  one  of  0  to 
form  the  compound  H20  "because  of"  the  laws  of  chemical 
affinity  and  u  because  of"  the  relations  into  which  the  H  and 
0  are  brought  by  the  compelling  forces  of  their  environment, 
—  temperature,  pressure,  induced  molecular  activities,  etc. 
But  the  chemical  is  not  the  entire  explanation  of  such  a  transac- 
tion in  reality.  Really,  H2  and  0  come  together  in  this 
way,  because  u  it  is  their  nature  to  ;  "  the  ultimate  explana- 
tion takes  into  the  account  the  mysterious  being  of  these 
elements  as  a  primary  postulate,  a  precondition  of  all  the 
forms  and  laws  of  their  reciprocal  behaviors.  Now,  from 
philosophy's  point  of  view  this  is  essentially  no  other  than  the 
position  :  H  and  0  behave  in  this  way  because  it  is  the  Will  of 
the  Absolute  that  they  should  so  behave.  Metaphysics  cannot 
consider  the  "  nature  of  things  "  as  something  bestowed  upon 
them,  in  the  lump  and  once  for  all  as  it  were.  Thus  is  all 
scientific  cognition  forced  virtually  to  acknowledge  a  mysteri- 
ous metaphysical  aspect  of  things,  a  primal  and  original  being 
which  they  have,  in  immediate  dependence  upon  the  All-Being 
whose  will  they  express.  Whether  any  fitting  terms  can  be 
found  to  express  these  two  aspects  of  the  activity  of  human 
wills  without  destroying  either  the  truths  of  fact  or  the  truth 
of  metaphysical  theory,  remains  to  be  seen.  But  should  wo 
be  forced  to  accept  both  aspects,  and  yet  continue  to  regard  the 
details  of  a  reconciliation  as  hidden  among  the  mysteries  of 
Absolute  Being,  the  way  of  God's  will  with  the  will  of  man 


516  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

would  not  be  the  only  ultimate  mystery.  The  way  of  our 
own  wills  we  know,  within  certain  limits,  most  clearly  and 
indubitably.  This  it  is  the  business  of  psychology  and  of  the 
philosophy  of  ethics  to  expound.  The  general  relation  of  the 
Will  of  God  to  this  our  will  follows  from  the  most  primary  and 
necessary  tenets  of  systematic  metaphysics.  But  the  particu- 
lar forms,  laws,  and  final  purposes,  of  this  relation  afford  a 
complex  problem  which  must  be  approached  from  many 
points  of  view,  and  the  complete  solution  of  which  may 
baffle  man's  inquiries  forever.  To  regard  God  as  sometimes 
compelling,  sometimes  openly  persuading  or  alluring,  some- 
times directing  by  special  revelations,  and  sometimes  "  leav- 
ing man  to  himself"  is  to  employ  figures  of  speech  that  are 
not  without  much  to  commend  them  in  all  human  experience. 
It  is  these  relations  of  force  and  causation  sustained  by 
manifold  particular  existences  to  absolute  and  supreme  Being, 
that  religion  has  emphasized  in  various  ways.  Thus,  in  its 
cruder  forms  it  has  regarded  the  gods  as  puissant  centres  of 
more  than  ordinary  effective  and  wide-spreading  forces,  on 
whose  action  the  well-being  of  man  and  the  phenomena 
of  nature  are  dependent ;  in  its  higher  forms,  it  has  regarded 
the  alone  God  as  the  Almighty,  the  Omnipotent  One.  It  has 
employed  such  terms  as  "  Creator,"  "  Preserver,"  or  "  De- 
stroyer," "  El-Shaddai,"  the  "  Lord  of  Hosts,"  to  designate 
the  permanent  relations  of  this  class  which  exist  between 
the  world  and  the  Absolute.  In  the  form  of  pious  feeling, 
it  has  acknowledged  the  dependence  of  the  will  of  the  good 
man,  for  every  good  deed,  upon  the  Divine  Will ;  and  grati- 
tude for  the  bounties  of  harvest  and  vintage,  as  well  as  for 
insight  into  the  truths  of  nature,  of  philosophy,  and  of  poli- 
tics, has  characterized  the  temper  of  the  wise  of  all  ages. 
Nor  have  these  spontaneous  proofs  of  the  absolute  depend- 
ence of  all  finite  existences,  forces,  and  causes,  upon  the  Will 
of  God  been  allowed  wholly  to  submerge  those  ethical  con- 
victions of  responsibility,  and  of  the  rational  character  of 


THE  WORLD   AND  THE   ABSOLUTE  517 

approbation  and  disapprobation,  which  emphasize  the  relative 
independence  of  the  human  will. 

The  third  main  class  of  relations  which  experience  com- 
pels us  to  affirm  as  actually  existent  between  the  world  and 
the  Absolute  is  yet  more  obviously  derived  from  man's 
highest  ideals.  These  relations  are  such  as  exist  between 
conscious  mind  and  the  expression,  or  manifestation,  of  its 
ideas  in  some  form  of  actuality.  More  abstractly  denned, 
they  are  summed  up  in  the  general  relation  of  the  controlling 
Idea  to  the  concrete  product  which  it  shapes.  The  Absolute 
has  actualized  his  ideas  in  the  forms,  laws,  and  final  purposes 
of  this  vast  complex  of  things  and  selves ;  God  has  shaped 
the  world  "to  his  mind." 

The  validity  of  all  human  knowledge  is  committed  to  the 
proposition  that  the  forms,  laws,  and  final  purposes  of  the 
world  are  not  merely  a  subjective  possession ;  they  belong 
also  to  the  things  themselves.  Unformed  existences  are  not 
real :  it  is  essential  to  the  very  being  of  everything  to  have, 
both  actually  and  potentially,  some  appropriate  form.  Nor 
is  there  any  Nature  to  be  known,  any  Cosmos  to  be  conceived 
of,  which  is  not  in  its  constitution  obedient  to  laws  in  the 
pursuit  of  certain  ideal  ends.  By  the  word  "  law "  we  can 
mean  nothing  actual  but  to  indicate  that  things  are  all 
known  to  behave  themselves  under  the  control  of  immanent 
ideas, — just  as,  in  fact,  we  know  ourselves  to  do. 

Forms,  laws,  and  ideal  ends,  weave  themselves  together  in  a 
bewildering  complexity,  and  with  an  activity  so  ceaseless  and 
so  intricate  that  it  is  always  quite  impossible  fully  to  trace 
it.  Yet  somehow  the  known  World  is  one  ;  a  marvellous 
unity  belonging  to  the  pattern  woven  by  this  vast  machine  — 
albeit,  we  cannot  discover  much  as  to  what  precisely  that 
pattern  may  be.  But  the  Being  whose  oneness  of  will  is  the 
source  of  all  actual  existences,  and  of  their  equipment  of  forces, 
and  of  their  reciprocal  causal  activities,  is  also  the  source  of 
the  ideas  and  purposes  which  they  all  display.  The  Absolute 


518  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

is  not  bare,  blind  Will,  or  mere  Unity  of  Force.  The  Absolute 
is  also  the  fountain  of  all  that  science  regards  as  the  forms, 
laws,  and  final  purposes  of  the  existences  which,  taken 
together,  constitute  the  world.  To  affirm  this  is  only  to  give 
the  ultimate  metaphysical  explanation  of  the  actual  state  of 
the  case ;  to  deny  this  is  to  make  all  such  explanation  for- 
ever impossible. 

Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  which  is  interior  and  has 
regard  to  its  so-called  "  nature"  and  its  natural  behavior, 
everything  forms  itself  as  though  endowed  with  the  requi- 
site ideas,  as  well  as  with  the  forces  required  to  actualize 
those  ideas.  Its  very  being  consists  in  its  se(f-activity  —  that 
is,  in  its  activity  according  to  those  ideas  which  define  its 
own  "  self  "  ;  it  is  only  such  behavior  that  can  impart  the 
"  relative  independency "  which  particular  realities  possess. 
Looked  at  from  the  point  of  view  which  is  exterior,  and 
which  discerns  the  dependence  of  every  existence  upon  the 
action,  upon  it,  of  other  related  existences,  every  individual 
thing  must  be  regarded  as  formed  by  other  things,  as  having 
its  own  activity  not  determined  by  itself  alone,  but  also  by 
the  other  selves  to  which  it  stands  related. 

Looked  at  from  the  interior  point  of  view,  every  thing  ap- 
pears to  be  willingly  obedient  to  the  laws  which  control  the 
part  allotted  to  it  in  the  World  of  things.  Indeed,  these 
laws  are  themselves  nothing  other  than  the  formulated  ex- 
pressions of  the  ideas  which  define  the  very  nature  of  the 
thing ;  they  are  only  its  natural  ways  of  behaving  itself 
under  a  greater  or  less  variety  of  changes  in  occasion  and 
circumstance.  But  looked  at  from  the  external  point  of 
view,  every  thing  appears  to  be  forced  to  obey  laws  which 
originate  outside  of  itself,  and  which  are  dictated  to  it  by  its 
environment,  in  accordance  with  the  natures  of  those  other 
things  that  constitute  this  environment. 

Looked  at  again  from  the  one  point  of  view,  every  thing  is 
seen  to  be  seeking  and,  more  or  less  successfully,  winning  its 


THE   WORLD   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  519 

own  ends.  It  is  a  "  will  to  live  ;  "  and  it  gets  its  will  by  using 
what  it  can  of  the  "  stuff  "  of  its  surrounding  world  as  means 
to  its  own  ideal  ends.  And  according  as  it  stands,  of  itself 
or  in  its  own  nature,  high  or  low  in  the  so-called  scale  of 
existences,  it  becomes  the  actual  locus,  as  it  were,  of  these 
same  ideal  ends.  It  has  its  own  ideas  of  what  it  wants  to  be, 
and  to  do,  of  the  ends  it  wills  to  attain ;  and  it  uses,  and 
adapts  as  it  uses,  the  means  to  these  ends.  But  looked  at 
from  the  other  point  of  view,  no  existence  is  an  end  to  itself ; 
the  rather  is  every  existence  only  means  to  something  other, 
which  may  be  either  higher  or  lower,  nobler  or  more  ignoble, 
worthier  or  seemingly  more  worthless,  than  itself.  The  worm 
serves  the  fish's  "  will  to  live "  as  its  means ;  and  the  fish, 
having  eaten  of  the  worm,  becomes  means  to  the  final  purposes 
conceived  by  some  man.  Yet  that  same  man  may  in  turn  be 
himself  means  to  the  final  purpose  of  the  worm  ;  and  this  may 
enable  the  fish  to  make  some  portion  of  that  same  man  a 
means  toward  the  accomplishment  of  its  own  ideal  ends. 
Only  as  we  bring  in  "  ideas  of  value,"  which  are  chiefly  de- 
rived from  the  spheres  of  ethics,  aesthetics,  and  religion,  can 
we  discern  any  correspondence  with  our  own  highest  ideals  in 
all  this.  But  that  the  World,  as  man  knows  it,  is  in  reality  a 
vast  complex  of  inter-related  means  and  ends,  a  veritable 
maze  of  curious  and  often  (from  the  point  of  view  of  our 
ethical,  assthetical,  and  religious  ideals)  unintelligible  adapta- 
tions, we  have  the  facts  abundantly  to  prove. 

All  things,  then,  as  looked  at  from  both,  and  indeed  from 
all  possible,  points  of  view,  are  both  self-forming  and  formed 
by  others,  are  behaving  in  accordance  with  law,  whether 
voluntarily  adopted  or  forced,  and  are  following  their  own 
ends  and  also  serving  as  means  to  the  attainment  of  the  ends 
of  others.  Such  is  u  the  world,"  as  known  by  man.  And  the 
pertinent  truth  about  it  all  is  this :  —  With  the  growth  of 
knowledge  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race,  such  a  picture  of 
the  world  gains  increasing  breadth,  and  depth,  and  richness 


520  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

of  color  and  of  meaning.  At  least  this  is  so  for  the  soul 
which  allows  itself  to  be  influenced  by  those  ethical,  gestheti- 
cal,  and  religious  considerations,  which  lie  somewhat  above 
and  beyond  the  fields  of  general  metaphysics,  although  they 
are  not  in  nature  altogether  foreign  or  hostile  to  these  fields. 
And  the  human  race  is  made  up  —  it  is  our  faith  —  of  an 
increasing  number  of  such  souls.  Meanwhile,  all  the  progress 
of  science,  with  its  gathering  of  new  insights  into  the  nature 
of  the  World,  consists  chiefly  in  endowing  IT  with  newly  dis- 
covered complications  of  form,  law,  and  final  purpose.  For  it 
is  only  as  science  weaves  the  pattern,  in  which  form,  law,  and 
final  purpose  are  ever-present,  interlacing  threads,  that  science 
presents  us  with  the  knowledge  of  a  Cosmos,  a  genuine  sys- 
tem of  things,  and  not  a  mere  jumble  of  mutually  disregard- 
ing existences  and  of  unconnected  events. 

When,  now,  the  question  is  raised,  What  is  the  ontological 
relation  of  such  a  World  to  the  Absolute  ?  the  answer  need 
not  long  be  delayed.  For  this  answer  does  not  come  as  the 
result  of  an  endless  chain  of  reasoning  which  carries  the  mind 
away  from  actual  finite  beings  to  infinite  distances  of  space  or 
time  ;  or  which  requires  a  speculative  insight  that  can  dis- 
pense with  all  that  falls  under  the  conditions  of  space  and 
time.  This  answer  is,  the  rather,  a  true  apprehension  of  what 
is  implicated  in  these  very  conditions  of  what  is  the  nature  of 
the  ever-present  Reality. 

Philosophy,  since  Kant,  has  denied  the  right  of  the  onto- 
logical argument  for  the  Being  of  God  in  its  leap  from  a  mere 
conception,  however  grand  and  aesthetically  captivating,  to 
the  conclusion  of  a  corresponding  Reality.  It  has  also  objected 
to  the  cosmological  argument  that  its  reasoning,  when  con- 
ducted in  accordance  with  the  strictest  obligations  to  its  own 
logical  character,  involves  it  in  the  hopeless  attempt  at  an 
infinite  regressus.  Backward  and  still  backward  must  the 
mind  go,  from  the  conditioned  to  the  conditioned,  from  one 
set  or  system  of  conditions  to  a  pre-existent  set  or  system  of 


THE  WORLD  AND   THE  ABSOLUTE  521 

conditions  ;  but  nowhere  can  this  flight  of  thought  come  to  its- 
resting-place  in  the  Unconditioned  ;  nowhere  does  the  mind 
discover  a  logical  ground  that  is  at  once  legitimate  and  final. 
But  while  the  pre-Kantian  theology  misused  these  so-called 
arguments,  the  post-Kantian  agnosticism  has  not  done  credit 
to  the  truth  that  is  in  them.  Strictly  speaking,  they  are  not 
separable  lines  of  argument  at  all ;  neither  are  they  deduc- 
tions that  need,  in  order  to  validate  them,  the  assistance  of 
detailed  presentation  in  syllogistic  form.  And,  certainly, 
they  are  not  correct  specimens  of  scientific  induction.  They 
describe  in  faulty  manner  the  inevitable,  because  the  constitu- 
tional, legitimate,  and  rational,  way  which  the  mind  of  man 
takes  in  dealing  with  the  complex  realities  of  his  complete 
experience.  Human  reason  seeks  a  Theory  of  Reality.  As- 
it  knows  more  of  itself,  of  other  minds,  and  of  things,  in  their 
vastly  complex  and  ever-shifting  particular  relations,  it  cease- 
lessly reaches  after  the  unity  of  an  explanatory  Ground.  It 
cannot  possibly  regard  forms,  and  laws,  and  adaptations  or 
uses  of  means  to  the  realizing  of  ends,  otherwise  than  as  the 
products  of  mind.  If  the  world  is  progressively  better  known 
as  a  vast  complex  of  forms,  laws,  and  final  purposes,  it  cannot 
be  known  otherwise  than  as  the  expression,  the  manifestation, 
the  realization,  of  Absolute  Mind.  This  conclusion,  we  repeat, 
lies  not  at  the  end  of  a  chain  that  can  have  no  end  ;  neither 
is  it  buried,  as  a  pot  of  gold,  at  the  foot  of  a  rainbow  painted 
by  fancy  in  a  painted  sky.  It  is  simply  the  mind's  recognition 
of  the  inner  and  ultimate  truth  of  the  world,  as  the  world  is 
known  by  man  —  namely,  as  an  experienced  complex  of  forms,, 
laws,  and  final  purposes. 

These,  then,  are  the  relations  sustained  by  the  world  to  the 
Absolute,  which  the  mind  of  man  finds  implicate  in  all  its 
cognitive  experience.  The  world  is  the  realization  of  the  ideas 
of  the  Absolute.  This  is  the  assumption  as  to  the  Being  of 
the  Absolute  that  can  be  the  Ground  of  such  a  world :  It  is 
Mind.  Therefore,  the  relations  of  the  world  to  the  Absolute 


522  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

must  be  conceived  of  as  those  sustained  by  the  varied  and 
interrelated  realizations  of  ideas  to  their  Ideal  Source,  to  the 
Idea,  to  the  absolute  Mind. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  emphasizing  the  positive  and  univer- 
sal aspects  of  the  problem,  as  they  reveal  themselves  in  the 
lights  shed  by  a  theory  of  reality  which  bases  itself  in  confi- 
dence upon  the  cognitive  experience  of  man.  All  the  actual 
relations  of  things  and  selves  have  their  ground,  and  so  their 
explanation,  in  the  One  Being.  All  those  fundamental  rela- 
tions, whose  application  to  real  existences  is  implicated  in  the 
criticism  of  the  categories,  are  always  sustained  by  the 
world  to  the  Absolute,  as  to  its  Ground.  These  affirmative 
positions  represent  the  conceptions  which  a  systematic  and 
critical  metaphysics  has  to  contribute  to  the  solution  of  this 
problem.  But  ethics  and  religion  are  accustomed  greatly  to 
concern  themselves  with  negations  and  exceptions.  This  they 
aim  to  do  in  the  interests  of  the  practical  life  of  man.  For 
the  will  of  man  they  require  an  exception  to  be  made ;  it  must 
not  be  conceived  of  as  absolutely  dependent  upon  the  will  of 
the  Absolute,  as  are  the  wills  of  the  lower  animals,  or  those 
centres  of  a  relative  self-activity  which  we  call  things.  Con- 
cerning his  relation  to  nature,  too,  —  religion  and  ethics  demand 
a  denial  that  man  is  a  part  of  nature,  or  is  subject  to  its  laws, 
as  are  all  the  particular  portions  of  "  brute  and  inanimate 
matter."  Religion  wishes  even  to  make  man's  existence  as  a 
self-conscious  and  ideating  Self  an  exception  to  the  common 
horde  of  existences  which  last  only  as  the  resultants  of  tem- 
porary combinations  amongst  physical  or  psychical  elements. 
While  all  things  pass  away,  man  must  be  non-mortal. 

No  thoughtful  student  of  metaphysics  —  not  to  say,  the 
man  who  is  wisely  sensitive  to  those  interests  of  life  which 
have  the  highest  value  —  can  regard  unsympathetically  this 
demand  which  ethics  and  religion  make  for  exceptions  and 
negations.  Theory  of  Reality  can  no  more  properly  than  can 
any  other  form  of  thought,  tramp  steadily  onward  with  the  iron 


THE    WORLD   AND   THE   ABSOLUTE  523 

heel  of  logic  over  the  quivering  and  bleeding  souls  of  human 
beings.  They,  too,  with  all  their  pains  and  pleasures,  their 
hopes,  fears,  faiths,  and  aspirations,  are  facts  which  concern 
our  theory  of  reality.  Knowledge  itself  is  not  independent  of 
the  emotional  and  voluntary  activities  of  the  knower. 
Knowledge  has  largely,  if  not  chiefly,  its  own  end  to  serve  in 
the  promotion  of  right  conduct  and  the  development  of  praise- 
worthy character.  But  philosophy  does  not  serve  ethics  and 
religion  in  the  best  possible  way  by  accepting  the  assumption 
of  Kant,  that  knowledge  has  to  be  removed  in  order  to  "  make 
room  for  faith ; "  or  by  divorcing  utterly  the  principles  of  con- 
duct, and  of  religious  belief  and  worship,  from  the  principles 
of  "  common  sense  "  and  of  science. 

So,  then,  whatever  seeming  exceptions  or  negations  are 
demanded  by  the  facts  of  ethics,  a3sthetics,  and  the  philosophy 
of  religion,  in  our  theoretical  way  of  conceiving  the  relations  of 
the  world  to  the  Absolute,  may  wait  until  a  critical  testing 
of  those  facts  can  be  made.  But  it  is  an  important  thought 
borrowed  from  metaphysics,  that  the  mode  of  the  Divine  Will 
with  finite  wills  is  infinitely  various  ;  and  that  the  manner  of 
the  dependency  of  these  wills  upon  the  Absolute  is  as  manifold 
as  is  the  number  of  these  wills.  Yet  always  this  relation  is, 
essentially  considered,  the  same  ;  for  human  wills  have  no  force 
that  is  not  drawn  from  the  reservoir  of  infinite  Force  :  they  have 
no  existence  which  is  not  a  being-dependent  upon  the  Being 
of  the  Absolute.  It  is  also  an  important  conclusion  from  our 
systematic  study  of  metaphysics,  that  all  the  valid  negations 
and  denials,  made  necessary  by  the  facts  to  which  ethics  and 
the  philosophy  of  religion  appeal,  are  virtually  brought  about 
by  an  interpretation  of  the  categories  upon  a  basis  of  our 
total  and  common  experience.  This  position  may  be  briefly 
illustrated  in  the  case  of  those  two  theoretical  statements  to 
which  the  developed  moral  and  religious  consciousness  of  man- 
kind is  accustomed  most  emphatically  to  object.  These  may 
be  summed  up  as  follows  :  "  The  World  is,  or  is  identical  with, 


524  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

the  Absolute  ; "  and  '.'  the  World  is  the  emanation,  or  necessi- 
tated evolution  of  the  Absolute." 

"  The  World  is,  or  is  identical  with,  the  Absolute."  Let 
us  briefly  consider  what  can  be  the  meaning  of  this.  If  it  be 
intended  by  such  a  statement  to  affirm  for  these  two  con- 
ceptions an  exact  logical  equivalence,  or  a  complete  sameness 
of  significance,  then  the  proposal  is  either  of  no  particular 
value  in  a  system  of  metaphysics,  or  else  a  judgment  is  laid 
down,  in  the  form  of  the  most  assured,  a  priori,  conclu- 
siveness,  which  contradicts  some  of  the  particular  conclusions 
reached  by  the  critical  attempt  to  frame  such  a  system.  If 
any  thinker  chooses,  indeed,  to  say,  "  I  employ  these  two  con- 
ceptions —  World  and  Absolute — in  precisely  the  same  way," 
then  no  other  thinker  can  gainsay  the  right,  even  though  the 
impropriety  soon  be  made  most  obvious.  But  it  has  been 
shown  in  detail  (p.  456  f.)  that  the  attempt  to  conceive  of  the 
World,  or  Nature,  as  "  absolute,"  inevitably  results  in  the 
introduction  of  considerations  which  force  upon  the  mind 
anew  a  most  important  division  of  these  conceptions.  The 
world  considered  as  a  vast  complex  of  interdependent  beings, 
becomes  related  to  the  World  as  absolute,  somewhat  as  mani- 
fold phenomena  are  related  to  the  one  Actuality,  or  as  many 
finite  existences  and  occurrences  are  related  to  their  One 
Ground.  Nature,  considered  as  an  absolute  unity,  inevitably 
becomes  split  again  into  two  parts,  to  which  names  must  be 
given  that  indicate  a  return  of  the  same  fundamental  distinc- 
tions :  Natura  is  both  natura  naturata  and  Natura  naturans. 
But  this  introduces  over  again,  with  no  advantage  from  any 
higher  point  of  view,  the  same  old  problem  of  the  relations  of 
the  world  considered  as  a  known  or  conceivable  complex  of 
existences  and  events,  to  the  Absolute. 

If,  however,  it  is  affirmed  that  the  world  is  known  by  all 
men,  on  account  of  the  very  nature  of  human  knowledge,  to 
be  in  reality  absolute,  the  affirmation  is  either  most  obviously 
false  or  most  profoundly  true,  according  to  the  meaning  given 


THE  WORLD  AND  THE  ABSOLUTE  525 

to  the  relations  expressed  by  such  terras.  To  say  that  the 
terms  on  which  men  generally  know  the  interconnected 
things  and  selves  of  their  experience  —  the  world  that  is 
each  man's  world  —  compel  them  to  assert  its  equivalence 
throughout,  in  reality,  to  Absolute  Being,  is  to  say  what 
neither  comparative  psychology  nor  philosophy  can  substan- 
tiate or  even  credit.  On  the  other  hand,  that  all  human 
knowledge  virtually  discerns  the  presence  of  an  absolute  as 
the  "  support "  and  "  realistic  core  "  (to  use  figures  of  speech 
whose  meaning  has  already  been  made  plain)  of  every  phe- 
nomenon, is  a  conclusion  enforced  by  all  critical  epistemol- 
ogy.  Something  is  real;  this  is  the  implicate  of  all  cognitive 
experience.  What  is  the  real  nature  of  this  everywhere 
immanent  Absolute,  every  attempt  at  a  systematic  and  crit- 
ical metaphysics  wishes  to  expound  more  clearly.  But  when 
this  attempt  leads  to  the  barren  assertion  of  a  merely  logical 
equivalence  between  the  World  and  the  Absolute,  it  ends  in 
empty  abstractions. 

The  burden  and  the  affliction  of  most  forms  of  philosophi- 
cal Monism  has  been  a  certain  levity  in  the  use  of  the  con- 
ception of  identity.  The  effort  of  the  advocates  of  monistic 
tenets  has  been  to  establish  this  conception,  with  all  the 
invincible  force  of  a  strictly  logical  demonstration,  in  exclu- 
sive command  over  the  sphere  of  all  relations  between  the 
world  and  God.  The  effort  of  objectors  lias  been  to  show 
that  this  conception  of  identity,  when  applied  to  these  rela- 
tions, weakens,  or  disregards,  or  destroys  certain  ethical  and 
religious  facts  and  truths  of  great  value.  In  most  cases  of 
dispute  over  this  form  of  Monism,  there  has  been  need  of  a 
prior  critical  discussion  of  the  conception  itself,  on  the  part 
both  of  advocates  and  of  objectors.  Now,  in  matters  of  real- 
ity, whether  of  physical  fact  and  law  or  of  mental  life, 
"  identity "  never  applies  as  a  strictly  logical  equivalence, 
whether  between  existences  or  between  events.1  Employed 

1  See  the  discussion  in  the  "Philosophy  of  Knowledge,"  chap.  ix. 


526  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

upon  this  subject,  the  principle  only  exhorts  the  disputants : 
"  Stick  to  the  same  meanings  for  your  terms,  the  World  and 
the  Absolute."  But  the  very  effort  to  do  this  introduces 
inevitably  the  same  fundamental  distinctions,  and  so  brings 
on  anew  a  discussion  of  relations,  as  though  the  mind  could 
not  possibly  indicate  precisely  the  same  conceptions  by  the 
two  phrases. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  critical  estimate  of  the  principle  of 
identity,  as  this  principle  applies  to  all  knowledge  and  to  all 
theory,  shows  that  these  two  assumptions  enter  into  its  appli- 
cability :  "  The  Self  is  a  life  comf ormable  to  law,  and  main- 
taining its  identity  by  this  conformity;"  and, "  The  principles 
of  Reality  not-my-self  and  the  principles  of  my  thinking 
must  be  the  same."  The  principle  of  identity  only  secures 
self -consistency ;  it  can  never  be  converted  into  the  form 
of  a  synthetic  judgment  applicable  to  a  complex  of  actual 
known  objects. 

Whenever,  then,  any  form  of  philosophical  Monism  attempts 
to  express  the  relations  of  the  world  to  the  Absolute  in 
terms  of  the  principle  of  identity,  its  attempt  must  always 
move  in  the  sphere  of  barren  abstractions.  On  the  contrary, 
the  problem  offered  by  the  attempt  to  conceive  of  the  rela- 
tions between  the  world  and  the  Absolute  must  always  have 
its  answer  based  upon  actual  knowledge  of  what  known  reali- 
ties are,  and  of  what  they  implicate.  It  can,  therefore,  never 
become  a  problem  whose  solution,  or  even  whose  discussion, 
is  purely  a  priori;  its  answer  cannot  be  set  forth  in  strictly 
logical  fashion,  after  the  pattern  of  Spinoza  or  even  of  Hegel. 

But  the  arguments  urged  against  philosophical  Monism  are 
too  often  not  well  taken  or  judiciously  expressed  on  this 
point.  If  God  is  not  to  be  conceived  of  as  the  Absolute, 
then  there  is  some  part  of  the  world  which  does  not  belong 
to  Him,  which  is  not  God's  world  —  though  what  sort  of 
things  or  selves  they  are  that  are  not  in  and  of  God's  world, 
human  thought  cannot  even  conjecture.  Moreover,  if  we  deny 


THE  WORLD   AND  THE   ABSOLUTE  527 

that  the  principle  of  identity  applies  to  these  two  conceptions^ 
in  such  manner  as  to  separate  by  our  denial  the  Absolute  from 
the  world,  as  to  remove  God  —  whether  in  respect  of  space, 
or  time,  or  power,  or  co-conscious  cognition  —  from  any  par- 
ticular existence  or  actual  event,  we  so  far  forth  destroy 
the  rational  grounds  of  ethics  and  religion.  For  the  "  imma- 
nence "  of  the  Absolute  in  the  world  is  the  one  central  tenet> 
as  it  were,  of  all  systematic  metaphysics.  It  is  virtually  this 
truth  which  all  the  critical  discussion  of  the  categories  sus- 
tains and  unfolds.  It  is  virtually  this  truth  which  the  analy- 
sis of  this  chapter  justifies  and  expands.  It  is  virtually  this 
truth  which  all  the  theory  of  reality  maintains.  This  theory 
itself  is  the  form  of  monistic  philosophy  which  is  summarized 
in  the  following  statements :  all  the  objects  of  the  world  have 
for  their  Subject  the  Absolute ;  all  the  relatively  independent 
centres  of  self-activity,  of  the  forthputting  and  reception  of 
forces,  of  causal  action  and  influence,  have  their  Ground  in 
the  Will  of  the  Absolute ;  and  all  the  forms,  laws,  and  ideal 
ends  of  the  world  are  realizations  of  the  Ideas  of  the 
Absolute. 

The  development  of  the  positive  sciences  involves  the 
increasing  conviction  that  the  unification  of  the  complex 
results  of  man's  accumulating  experience  with  things  is  possi- 
ble. This  is  man's  growing  knowledge  of  the  world.  Philos- 
ophy, in  its  branch  of  metaphysics,  shows  that  this  possibility 
implies  that  Unity  of  Reality  which  the  mind  of  man  con- 
ceives of  as  an  Absolute  Self,  whose  most  essential  character- 
istics entitle  us  to  call  it  Spirit.  It  belongs  to  the  philosophy 
of  the  Ideal,  to  the  reflective  study  of  Ethics,  ^Esthetics, 
and  Religion  to  expand  and  to  defend  the  doctrine  as  to 
the  nature  of  Infinite  Spirit,  and  as  to  the  more  ideal 
relations  which  man  sustains  to  this  Spirit. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  in  detail  the  truths,  half- 
truths,  and  erroneous  confusion  which  accompany  every 
attempt  to  regard  the  Absolute  as  merely  an  unconscious, 


528  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

wow-mental,  mechanical  process,  to  be  identified  throughout 
with  the  descriptive  history  of  the  world's  evolution  in  time 
and  space.  This  is  the  form  of  the  emanation  theory  which 
has  been  assumed,  on  the  basis  of  scientific  discoveries,  in 
modern  times.  It  is  enough  at  present  to  say  that  this 
attempt  inevitably  brings  on  the  same  contest  over  ambigu- 
ous conceptions,  the  same  necessity  for  making  unalterable 
distinctions,  the  same  demand  for  a  thorough  criticism  of 
the  categories,  as  prerequisites  of  any  defensible  theory  of 
reality.  Can  the  world  emanate,  or  evolve,  from  its  Self, 
unless  this  Being  of  the  World  be  construed  in  such  manner 
as  to  relate  IT  to  its  own  processes  of  Becoming  as  the  one, 
sufficient  Ground  of  them  all?  And  what  is  the  real  nature 
of  a  being  that  can  sustain  such  relations  ?  But  the  answer 
to  these  questions  is  precisely  that  which  has  been  framing 
itself  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  this  book.  The  valid 
conceptions  of  selfhood  and  of  evolution,  or  an  orderly  and 
rational  process  of  becoming,  as  applied  to  the  sum-total  of 
man's  cognitive  experience,  have  been  chiefly  influential  in 
all  its  discussions. 


CHAPTER  XX 

SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION 

THE  last  Chapter  brought  to  its  close  the  discussion  of 
certain  psychological  and  philosophical  problems  which  has 
been  prolonged  during  a  number  of  years.  These  problems 
all  concern  themselves  in  a  general  way  with  the  following 
question :  "  What,  in  reliance  upon  the  cognitive  experience 
of  all  men  and  upon  the  assured  results  of  the  positive 
sciences,  can  we  be  said  to  know  about  the  Nature  of  Reality  ? 
A  brief  statement  of  the  opinions  reached  by  so  prolonged 
and  varied  a  study  seems  'appropriate  at  this  point.  It  also 
seems  not  inappropriate  that  the  impersonal  attitude  which 
has  characterized  the  discussion  hitherto  should  give  way  to 
that  more  familiar  mode  of  intercourse  which,  in  philo- 
sophical writings,  is  ordinarily  confined  to  the  Preface.  In 
a  word,  I  ask  that  the  following  Summary  of  Conclusions 
may  be  received  as  a  privileged  communication  ;  that  through 
it  I  may  enter  into  those  friendly  personal  relations  with  my 
readers,  under  which,  without  incurring  the  suspicion  of 
egotism,  thoughtful  men  like  to  submit  to  one  another  their 
most  cherished  reflections. 

Some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago  there  appeared  to  me  to 
be  much  greater  likelihood  than  now  appears,  that  the  move- 
ment to  establish  a  study  of  the  psychical  life  of  man  from 
the  experimental,  chemico-physical,  and  physiological  points 
of  view  would  result  in  a  profound  modification  of  the  views 
hitherto  current.  This  modification  seemed  likely  to  extend 
not  only  to  the  doctrine  of  the  soul's  nature,  but  also  to  all  of 

those  philosophical  tenets  which  are  naturally  and  necessarily 

34 


530  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

dependent  upon  the  general  conclusions  of  psychology.  It 
was  after  a  considerable  period  of  time,  fully  occupied  with 
experimental  research,  with  reading  of  many  books,  and  with 
painstaking  reflection,  that  I  published  (in  1887)  a  work 
entitled  "Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology."  During 
the  period  of  its  preparation,  and  at  the  date  of  its  publica- 
tion, the  situation  may  be  briefly  described  in  the  following 
sentences  quoted  from  its  Preface:  "There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  an  important  movement  has  arisen  in  recent  times 
through  the  effort  to  approach  the  phenomena  of  mind  from 
the  experimental  and  physiological  point  of  view.  .  .  .  Some 
writers  have  certainly  indulged  in  extravagant  claims  as  to 
the  past  triumphs  of  so-called  Physiological  Psychology,  and 
in  equally  extravagant  expectations  as  to  its  future  discoveries. 
On  the  other  hand,  a  larger  number,  perhaps,  have  been 
inclined  either  to  fear  or  to  depreciate  every  attempt  to 
mingle  the  methods,  laws,  and  speculations  of  the  physical 
sciences  with  the  study  of  the  human  soul.  These  latter 
apparently  anticipate  that  some  discovery  in  the  localization 
of  cerebral  function,  or  in  psychometry,  may  jeopard  the 
birthright  of  man  as  a  spiritual  and  rational  being."  Not 
sympathizing  with  either  of  these  extremes  of  expectation  and 
of  fear,  yet  having  upon  my  mind  both  the  philosophical  and 
the  ethical  and  religious  interests  involved,  I  undertook  the 
requisite  course  of  investigation.  On  entering  upon  the  task 
I  freed  myself,  as  far  as  possible,  from  prejudice ;  and  I 
summoned  to  its  execution  all  the  industry,  judgment,  and 
resources  at  my  command. 

The  conclusions  to  which  a  study  of  man's  mental  life  from 
the  physiological  and  experimental  point  of  view  led  me 
were  summarized  in  the  Third  Part  of  my  book,  under  the 
heading,  "The  Nature  of  the  Mind."  Briefly  expressed, 
these  conclusions  left  the  popular  dualism  standing  unshaken 
in  its  fundamental  positions,  although  with  a  greatly  altered 
scientific  exactness  of  statement  and  with  an  added  evalu- 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  531 

ation.  The  reality  of  the  human  body,  considered  as  a  molec- 
ular mechanism,  connected  by  a  great  variety  of  chemico- 
physical  laws  and  forces  with  the  world  of  Nature,  and  yet 
standing  in  peculiar,  and  even  unique,  relations  to  the  Mind, 
remained  unimpaired.  But  the  unity,  the  reality,  and  the 
causal  efficiency  of  the  mind  remained  even  more  clearly 
manifest,  both  as  an  original  assumption  of  all  psycho- 
physical  researches  and  also  as  a  conclusion  progressively 
established  by  those  researches. 

Moreover,  it  then  seemed,  and  it  has  always  seemed,  to 
me  that  these  two  realities,  so  intimately  and  wonderfully 
related,  positively  will  not  submit  to  having  the  truth  about 
their  relations  told  in  terms  of  a  theory  of  psycho-physical 
parallelism.  I  have,  therefore,  remained  from  the  first  a 
determined  and  consistent  opponent  of  this  theory.  I  still 
regard  its  downfall  as  its  inevitable  doom  at  the  hands  of 
psycho-physical  science.  The  rather  did  the  body  and  mind 
of  man  appear  to  be  at  the  end  of  all  purely  scientific  investi- 
gation, in  fact,  just  what,  antecedent  to  any  investigation, 
"common-sense"  supposes  them  to  be.  To  science,  as  to 
common-sense,  body  and  mind  appear  to  be  real  and  variously 
interrelated  existences,  which,  by  their  combined  causal 
efficiency  somehow  build  up  the  unity  of  a  manifold  Self. 
Or,  —  to  quote  again  from  the  same  work,  —  "  The  subject  of 
all  the  states  of  consciousness  is  a  real  unit-being,  called 
Mind ;  which  is  of  non-material  nature,  and  acts  and  develops 
according  to  laws  of  its  own,  but  is  specially  correlated  with 
certain  material  molecules  and  masses  forming  the  substance 
of  the  brain."  To  say  essentially  the  same  thing  from  the 
evolutionary  point  of  view :  u  The  development  of  Mind  can 
only  be  regarded  as  the  progressive  manifestation  in  con- 
sciousness of  the  life  of  a  real  being  which,  although  taking 
its  start  and  direction  from  the  action  of  the  physical  elements 
of  the  body,  proceeds  to  unfold  powers  that  are  sui  generis^ 
according  to  laws  of  its  own." 


532  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

As  to  the,  more  particular  nature  of  that  real  connection 
which  both  the   popular   impressions  and   the   postulates  of 
psycho-physical  research  assume  to  exist  between  brain  and 
mind,  I  showed  in  the  treatise  just  mentioned,  that  modern 
scientific  studies  and  discoveries  do  not  essentially  alter  these 
impressions  and  these  postulates.     "  The  assumption  that  the 
mind  is  a  real  being,  which  can  be  acted  upon  by  the  brain, 
and  which  can  act  on  the  body  through  the  brain,  is  the  only 
one  compatible  with   all  the  facts  of  experience."     This  is 
true,  however  the  facts  of  experience  are  garnered ;  whether 
from  the  behavior  of  the  general  mental  life  under  the  most 
ordinary  conditions,  or  from  the  more  guarded  and  artificial 
activities  of  the  subjects  of  laboratory  experimentation.     The 
theories  of  materialism,  of  psychological  idealism,  of  occasion- 
alism, of  pre-established  harmony,  "  and  all  similar  theories, 
do  not  in  the  least  assist  us  to  escape  the  difficulties  which 
attach  themselves  to  every  conception  of   causation,"    when 
applied  to  the  relations  of  brain  and  mind.     On  the  other 
hand,   there   is   nothing   which    science   knows   "  about   the 
nature  of  material  beings  and  the  laws  of  their  relation  to 
each  other,  or  about  the  nature  of  spiritual  beings  and  their 
possible  relation  to  material  beings,  or  about  the  nature  of 
causal  efficiency,  whether  in  the  form  of   so-called  physical 
energy  or  in  that  of  activity  in  consciousness,  which  forbids 
the  use  of  the  causal  conception  in  this  connection." 

In  a  word,  so  far  as  the  metaphysical  conceptions  of 
"  reality,"  "  unity,"  "  interaction,"  "  causal  efficiency,"  etc., 
are  concerned,  whether  taken  into  his  work  as  assumptions, 
or  derived  from  his  work  as  conclusions,  the  student  of 
physiological  and  experimental  psychology  has  nothing  es- 
sential to  change,  and  little  to  learn.  Psychology,  pursued 
by  experimental  methods,  does  bestow  much  valuable  inform- 
ation as  to  what  sort  of  realities  and  unities  both  body  and 
mind  are ;  and  as  to  what  are  the  more  precise  formulas  for 
the  almost  infinite  variety  of  interactions,  or  causal  relations, 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  533 

which  constantly  take  place  between  the  two.  But  a  scientific 
empirical  psychology  ends  where  it  begins;  —  namely,  with 
the  use  of  those  uncriticised  but  valid  conceptions  which  all 
men  employ  with  more  or  less  of  intelligent  meaning  when 
speaking  upon  the  same  subjects.  Neither  a  materialistic  nor 
a  spiritualistic  monism,  and  even  less  a  theory  of  psycho- 
physical  parallelism,  derives  any  sufficient  support  or  comfort 
from  a  scientific  study  of  the  phenomena  of  human  conscious- 
ness when  undertaken  from  the  physiological  and  experi- 
mental points  of  view.  Such  a  psychological  investigation,  if 
true  to  what  it  finds,  remains  upon  the  basis  of  a  common- 
sense  dualism  to  the  very  last.  And  such  a  naive  dualism 
understands  the  terms,  "  body,"  "  mind,"  and  "  relation  of  the 
two,"  in  the  metaphysical  meaning  which,  without  subjecting 
it  to  a  thorough  criticism,  I  elaborated,  in  the  concluding 
chapters  of  the  "  Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology." 

By  no  means  all  the  processes  of  the  mental  life,  however, 
and  not  even  all  the  elements  of  any  of  the  developed  mental 
processes,  admit  of  treatment  from  the  physiological  and 
experimental  point  of  view.  How  true  this  is  at  present, 
any  one  can  understand  who  will  compare  with  the  depth  and 
breadth  and  wealth  of  content  which  actuality  presents,  the 
thin  and  meagre  description  of  the  nature  and  development 
of  the  mind  which  a  strict  adherence  to  this  point  of  view  per- 
mits. He  is  a  poor  and  pitiful  soul,  indeed,  who  has  no  more  in 
real  experience  than  the  use  of  laboratory  methods  can  detect 
and  depict.  This  statement  tends,  not  toward  the  deprecia- 
tion of  the  workman  in  experimental  psychology,  but  rather  to 
the  fuller  appreciation  of  any  work,  pursued  by  any  method, 
which  will  advance  the  details  of  so  complex  and  difficult  a 
science  as  is  the  psychology  of  man. 

It  was  with  such  convictions  in  mind  that  the  investigations 
were  pursued  (both  contemporaneously  with,  and  subsequently 
to,  those  whose  results  were  published  in  the  "  Elements," 
etc.)  which  I  embodied  in  a  work  issued  in  1894.  This  work 


534  A  THEORY  OF  REALITY 

was  entitled,  "  Psychology,  Descriptive  and  Explanatory."  It 
aimed  to  give  a  fairly  complete  picture  of  the  activities  and 
the  development  of  man's  mental  life,  together  with  such  ex- 
planations derived  from  all  sources  as  the  present  state  of  the 
science  makes  possible.  In  this  book,  therefore,  I  treated 
not  only  the  sensations  and  the  more  primary  intellectual 
processes,  but  also  the  development  of  memory  and  imagina- 
tion, of  thought  and  language,  of  reasoning,  of  the  emotions 
and  passions,  the  ethical  and  sesthetical  sentiments,  as  well  as 
the  impulses,  instincts,  and  desires,  and  the  unfolding  of 
character.  Nor  did  it  seem  to  me  that  psychology  thus  pur- 
sued, if  faithful  to  its  task  of  describing  all  the  activities  and 
laws  of  development  belonging  to  mental  life,  could  escape 
having  something  to  say  upon  such  universal  conceptions  as 
space,  time,  and  causation ;  and  upon  the  cognition  of  Things 
and  of  Self.  Chapters  upon  these  topics,  therefore,  carried 
psychological  discussion  up  to  the  very  limits  where  philos- 
ophy receives  it  from  the  hands  of  psychology. 

In  the  concluding  pages  of  the  "  Descriptive  Psychology  " 
I  gathered  together  those  more  general  statements  concerning 
the  nature  and  laws  of  the  mind  which  the  detailed  study  of 
its  descriptive  history  seemed  to  make  good.  In  presenting 
these  conclusions  it  was  admitted  that  an  original  nature,  or 
derived  potentiality,  for  the  human  soul  is,  after  all,  the 
assumption  which  underlies  all  our  attempts  at  the  particulars 
of  a  true  story  of  its  actual  development.  "  In  the  beginning 
was  Mind,  already  equipped  to  see  and  hear  and  remember 
and  imagine  and  think."  Yet  "  there  are,  it  would  seem, 
certain  principles  which  belong  to  all  development  of  the  men- 
tal life  of  man ;  and  every  stage  of  consciousness,  and  every 
form  of  so-called  faculty,  in  every  stage  of  its  formation, 
appears  to  conform  to  these  principles."  Among  such  prin- 
ciples I  recognized  the  following  four :  The  principle  of  Con- 
tinuity, the  principle  of  Relativity,  the  principle  of  Solidarity, 
and  the  principle  of  Teleological  Import,  By  the  first  of 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  535 


these  it  was  intended  to  emphasize  the  truth  that  the  real 
life  of  every  mind  is  a  connected  and  interdependent  process 
of  becoming.  "  The  very  nature  of  the  mind,  so  far  as  science 
can  observe  it,  is  seen  in  this  unbroken  vital  flow.  Its  being 
is  in  being  just  such  an  uninterrupted  stream  of  psychic  life." 
With  this  principle  is  closely  connected  the  principle  of  rela- 
tivity. "  Every  individual  element,  or  state,  or  form  of 
mental  life,  is  what  it  is  only  as  relative  to  other  elements, 
states,  and  forms  of  the  same  mental  life."  Or  combining  the 
two  principles  we  are  compelled  to  regard  the  true  picture  of 
mental  life  as  that  of  "  a  continuance  of  interdependent  psy- 
choses." Thus  "  descriptive  psychology  ends  in  adopting  the 
conception  of  a  being  with  a  unique  unity  of  nature  and  an 
equally  unique  history  of  development." 

In  spite  of  the  elasticity  and  changeable  quality  which  the 
mind  of  the  individual  man  possesses,  when  regarded  as  a 
series  of  interconnected  processes  of  becoming,  the  whole  of 
mental  life  has  a  certain  solidarity  and  unity  of  character  and 
aim,  and  not  simply  a  unity  in  the  successions  of  a  comparable 
time-series.  For  "the  effect  of  every  partial  or  complete 
working  of  the  psychic  mechanism  is  felt  upon  the  weal  or 
the  woe  of  the  whole  mental  development ;  and  this  develop- 
ment necessarily  tends  toward  some  kind  of  unification  of 
result.  Such  is  a  brief  statement  of  the  principle  of  solidarity 
as  applied  to  the  life  of  the  mind.  It  is  under  the  action  of 
this  principle  that  the  original  vague  and  relatively  plastic 
unity  of  disposition,  instincts,  impulses,  etc.,  becomes  the 
more  clearly  crystallized  and  definitively  shaped  unity  of  a 
"  character."  But  throughout  the  descriptive  history  of  the 
mind  we  notice  traces  of  the  teleological  principle.  "  Activity 
to  some  end  is  the  ruling  principle  of  mental  development. 
The  self-conscious,  intelligent  adoption  of  a  plan,  and  selec- 
tion of  means  for  its  pursuit,  is  distinctive  of  the  acme  of 
man's  development.  The  more  comprehensive  this  plan,  and 
the  wiser  the  selection  of  means,  the  higher  is  the  standing 


536  A   THEORY   OF   REALITY 

of  the  individual  in  the  scale  that  measures  the  development 
of  Mind." 

"  In  fine,  a  combination  of  all  these  principles,  as  they  appear 
in  their  actual  operation,  secures  for  every  so-called  stream  of 
consciousness  that  continuity,  related  action,  solidarity  of 
character,  and  that  intelligible  import  as  judged  by  the  light 
of  ends  and  ideals,  which  are  necessary  to  the  history  of  what 
we  call  a  Soul,  or  a  Mind." 

But  all  psychological  treatises,  even  when  they  advance 
into  the  field  of  metaphysics  somewhat  further  than  the 
modern  conceptions  of  psychological  science  seem  to  warrant, 
leave  many  of  their  most  important  conceptions  and  principles 
in  a  quite  unsatisfactory  condition.  This  was  admittedly  and 
designedly  true  of  those  treatises  to  which  reference  has  just 
been  made.  The  conclusion  had,  indeed,  been  reached,  that 
the  science  of  mental  phenomena  and  the  development  of 
mental  life  both  assumes  and  also  confirms,  expands,  and 
clarifies  a  certain  metaphysical  conception  of  Mind.  This 
conception  regards  every  mind  as  an  active,  real,  and  unitary 
being,  which  stands  in  a  variety  of  reciprocal  causal  rela- 
tions to  a  material  body  ;  and  which,  together  with  this  body, 
constitutes  a  complex  and  looser  unity  called  the  Self,  that 
through  the  body,  sustains  all  its  relations  to  a  Nature  which 
is  known  as  "  not-itself."  But  herein  is  involved  a  number 
of  conceptions  that  demand  further  reflective  treatment,  and 
a  more  thorough  criticism. 

What  is  it  for  the  mind  to  be  "  real,"  to  be  "  unitary,"  to 
stand  in  "  causal  "  or  other  "  relations  "  with  the  body  ?  And 
what,  if  anything,  follows  from  the  answer  to  these  questions 
which  has  an  important  bearing  on  inquiries  as  to  the  origin, 
destiny,  and  place  in  nature  of  man's  mind  ?  It  was  to  the 
solution  of  such  problems  as  these  that  I  attempted  to  make 
some  slight  contribution  in  a  book  entitled,  "  Philosophy  of 
Mind"  (or,  "  An  Essay  in  the  Metaphysics  of  Psychology  "), 
1895.  With  reference  to  the  relations  always  existing 


SUMMARY  AND   CONCLUSION  537 

between  the  science  of  psychology  and  the  metaphysics  of 
mental  life  and  mental  development,  1  showed  in  the  open- 
ing chapters  of  this  book  that  only  two  positions  are  tenable. 
The  first  of  these  positions  assumes  and  maintains  through- 
out that  common-sense  dualism  which,  as  had  already  been 
shown,  is  unimpaired  by  the  facts  of  psychological  science. 
The  second  approaches  the  science  with  a  frankly  avowed 
metaphysical  standpoint,  and  then  either  modifies  or  strength- 
ens this  standpoint  by  the  measure  of  success  which  the 
theory  displays  in  its  treatment  of  the  phenomena.  In 
these  opening  chapters  I  strove  to  make  it  clear,  by  a  thorough 
criticism  of  selected  examples,  that  neither  the  theory  of 
naturalism  (or  materialism),  nor  that  of  asolipsistic  idealism, 
nor  that  of  psycho-physical  parallelism,  succeeds  in  remain- 
ing honestly  and  frankly  consistent  with  itself,  while  at  the 
same  time  dealing  in  a  scientific  way  with  the  phenomena  of 
Mind. 

Now  the  "  final  aim  of  psychology  is  to  understand  -the 
nature  and  development,  in  its  relations  to  other  beings,  of  that 
unique  kind  of  being  which  we  call  the  Soul  or  Mind."  But 
"  philosophy  seeks  a  unitary  conception  of  the  real  world  that 
shall  be  freed,  as  far  as  possible,  from  internal  contradictions 
and  based  upon  all  the  facts  of  nature  and  of  human  life." 
So,  then,  psychology,  although,  when  considered  as  the  science 
of  mental  phenomena  and  of  mental  development,  it  is  not 
co-extensive  either  in  range,  method,  or  conclusiveness,  with 
philosophy,  is,  nevertheless,  the  proper  propaedeutic  to  all 
philosophy,  and  especially  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Self.  "In 
particular,  the  problems  of  philosophy  all  emerge  and  force 
themselves  upon  the  mind  in  the  attempt  thoroughly  to  com- 
prehend and  satisfactorily  to  solve  the  problems  of  a  scientific 
psychology ;  and  the  attempts  along  the  different  main  lines 
of  research  in  psychology  to  deal  scientifically  with  its  prob- 
lems all  lead  up  to  the  place  where  this  science  hands  these 
same  problems  over  to  philosophy.'* 


538  A   THEORY  OF  REALITY 

Starting  with  that  "Concept  of  Mind"  which  man's  most 
incontestable  cognitive  experience  validates,  I  showed  that 
it  is  totally  misrepresented  by  those  psychologists  who  re- 
gard the  mind  merely  "  content-wise,"  as  a  temporary  aggre- 
gate of  sensations,  images,  etc.,  in  an  ever-flowing  stream  of 
consciousness.  For  "  every  state  of  consciousness  is  not  only 
capable  of  being  regarded  on  the  side  of  passive  content  of 
consciousness,  —  it  must  also  be  regarded  on  the  side  of  active 
discriminating  consciousness  ;  "  and,  indeed,  "  consciousness 
regarded  as  objectively  discriminated,  and  consciousness 
regarded  as  discriminating  activity,  are  only  two  sides,  as  it 
were,  of  one  and  the  same  consciousness."  In  fine,  "  all 
psychic  life  manifests  itself  to  the  subject  of  that  life  as 
being,  in  one  of  its  fundamental  aspects,  its  own  spontaneous 
activity."  It  is  this  cognitive  experience  of  being  a  "  Self-alive" 
from  which  we  take  all  our  startings,  and  to  which  we  con- 
stantly return  again,  in  every  process  of  conceiving  a  "  human 
mind." 

When,  now,  philosophy  proceeds  to  inquire  concerning  that 
reality  and  unity  of  being  which  the  mind  has,  it  can  only 
discover  and  accept  as  final  the  answer  which  lies  not  afar 
off,  but  is  before  us  in  every  act  of  the  life  of  self-con- 
sciousness. "  The  reality  of  mental  life  consists  in  actual 
mentality ;  it  is  the  really  being  self-conscious,  self-active, 
knowing,  remembering,  and  thinking,  as  Mind."  Its  realest 
being  is  its  "  Being-for-itself."  When,  however,  the  philoso- 
phy of  mind  attempts  to  understand  the  reality  of  mind  in 
accordance  with  an  intelligible  conception  of  identity  for  the 
Self,  and  a  real  permanence  in  time,  it  encounters  the  un- 
doubted fact  of  change.  The  conception  of  self-identity  can- 
not, therefore,  be  held  in  a  form  contradictory  to  the  fact  of 
change.  On  the  contrary,  "  changes  heighten  rather  than 
diminish  the  reality  and  validity  of  the  consciousness  of 
identity  properly  described  and  understood."  Indeed,  "  actu- 
ally to  be  self-conscious  and  to  remember  recognitively  is  to 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  539 

be  conscious  of  being  identical  and  self-same."  But  what  is 
required  for  the  highest  kind  of  real  identity  of  the  mind,  and 
for  an  actual  mental  development,  is  to  remain  true  to  some 
chosen  ideal.  For  of  that  unitary  being  we  call  a  mind,  this 
is  emphatically  true  ;  "  its  reality  is,  under  all  circumstances 
and  forever,  a  reality  which  must  be  realized  in  its  own 
peculiar  way,  in  order  to  maintain  itself  at  all." 

In  brief,  the  reality,  self-identity,  and  unity,  of  man's  mind 
consists  in  its  actually  being  a  self-conscious  Will,  recogni- 
tively  remembering  its  own  past,  actively  thinking  itself  into 
a  unitary  Life,  and  pursuing  by  intelligently  chosen  ends  its 
own  ideal  aims.  Of  such  actual  being  of  a  soul,  different 
men  partake  in  far  different  degrees,  according  as  they  more 
or  less  perfectly  realize  the  conception  of  a  Soul. 

It  is  not  necessary  even  to  summarize  the  conclusions  of 
the  detailed  discussion  which  followed,  concerning  the  rela- 
tions, in  actuality,  between  mind  and  body.  This  discussion 
occupied  the  later  chapters  of  the  "  Philosophy  of  Mind." 
Its  conclusions  all  tended  toward  the  vindication  anew  of  the 
"  principle  of  causation  "  as  applying  to  these  relations.  But 
the  discussion  also  showed  that  this  principle  itself  has  its 
own  birth,  and  its  own  most  ultimate  explanation,  in  the 
undoubted  knowledge  which  the  Self  has  of  itself  in  its  chang- 
ing relations  to  things.  The  ultimate  and  mysterious  fact 
of  interaction,  which  has  its  primary  source  in  our  experience 
as  a  total  complex  of  actively  and  passively  moulded  phases 
of  consciousness,  neither  of  itself  abrogates  the  reality  of  the 
interacting  existences  nor  impairs  the  unity  of  man's  experi- 
ence of  the  World.  "  For  partially,  and  often  chiefly  or  even 
almost  exclusively,  the  explanation  of  the  interaction  of  every 
two  beings  is  to  be  found  in  the  so-called  <  nature  '  of  the 
beings  which  interact ;  that  is,  the  interaction  itself  is  recog- 
nized as  a  mode  of  behavior  which  admits  of  no  further  expla- 
nation than  the  self-activity  of  the  beings  which  interact." 

When,  however,  we  come  to  consider  the  "  Place  of  Man's 


540  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

Mind  in  Nature,"  this  duality  of  body  and  mind  in  the  unity  of 
one  Self,  and  this  multiplicity  constituted  by  every  individual 
self  in  all  its  known  or  conceivable  relations  with  other  selves 
and  with  things,  and  the  infinite  multiplicity  of  things  thus 
more  or  less  intimately  related  to  each  self,  must  be  harmon- 
ized in  some  way.  The  need  arises  for  an  explanation  of 
the  totality  of  our  cognitive  experience  in  some  higher 
and  more  Ultimate  Unity.  Such  a  unity  certainly  is  not 
furnished  by  the  vague  or  purely  negative  conception  of  a  third 
something  which  is  neither  body  nor  mind.  For  all  modern 
science  agrees  that  the  body,  considered  as  a  part  of  nature, 
must  be  held  to  come  under  the  chemico-physical  principles 
which  define  the  being,  and  control  the  changes,  of  other 
material  things.  Man's  body  is  of  the  earth,  earthy.  This 
is  not  said  to  its  despite  or  depreciation.  For  nature  is 
somehow,  when  rightly  understood,  seen  to  be  expressive  of 
a  yet  larger  and  more  mysterious  selfhood  than  that  which 
any  man  can  claim  to  possess  or  fully  to  comprehend.  Man 
as  placed  in  Nature,  both  body  and  mind,  one  Self,  belongs, 
together  with  all  other  selves  and  things,  to  the  Being  of  the 
World.  And  the  "  Being  of  the  World,  of  which  all  particu- 
lar beings  are  but  parts  (not  in  any  spatial  significance  of 
this  word),  must  then  be  so  conceived  of  as  that  in  IT  can  be 
found  the  one  Ground  of  all  interrelated  existences  and 
activities.  Thus  does  the  philosophy  of  Mind  open  before  us 
the  larger  problems  of  the  philosophy  of  all  existences,  of  the 
6  Being  of  the  World.'  " 

At  this  point  in  the  serious  reflective  study  of  man's  cogni- 
tive experience  it  customarily  is  that  our  confidence  in  our 
conclusions  begins  to  be  disturbed.  That  man  may  attain 
something  approaching  a  descriptive  science  of  the  phenomena 
of  his  own  mental  life  and  mental  development  as  an  individ- 
ual mind,  it  is  not  easy  to  doubt.  If  one  will  avoid  the  phil- 
osophical mysticism  which  uses  language  legitimately  derived 
from,  and  interpretable  into,  terms  of  experience,  in  the  ille- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  541 

gitimate  and  vain  effort  to  set  forth  what  lies  outside  of  all 
possible  experience,  then  one  may  attain  some  sort  of  a  Phil- 
osophy of  Mind.  If  one  seeks,  not  the  reality,  the  unity,  the 
self-identity,  and  the  relations  to  other  realities  of  an  unap- 
proachable Ding-an-Sich  of  a  soul,  but  the  actuality,  unity, 
self-identity,  and  actual  relationships  of  the  self-knowing 
man,  then  one  may  find  valid  answers  to  one's  questions. 
But  what  invincible  opposition,  what  wholly  insurmountable 
obstacles,  may  not  a  reasonable  agnosticism  offer  to  even  the 
first  attempts  at  a  metaphysical  inquiry  into  the  "  Being  of 
the  World"! 

Doubtless,  different  students  of  the  profounder  problems 
which  are  proposed  by  the  experience  of  man  with  himself 
and  with  things  come  to  the  sceptical  halting,  or  to  the  en- 
trenched position  of  agnosticism,  at  quite  different  points 
along  their  faltering.  Probably,  in  fact,  most  men  become 
fixedly  agnostic  at  the  point  where  they  get  tired  of  reflective 
thinking.  And  the  history  of  philosophy  seems  to  show  that 
somewhat  of  the  same  experience  characterizes  the  reflective 
thinking  of  the  race.  But  consider  sympathetically  the  posi- 
tion in  which  I  found  myself  as  an  apparently  logical  conclu- 
sion, a  definitively  scientific  resultant,  of  all  my  preceding 
investigations  in  psychology  and  philosophy.  I  had  studied 
the  life  of  the  Mind,  originally  approaching  it  from  the  physi- 
ological and  experimental  points  of  view.  But  this  study  had 
left  the  problems  of  its  reality  and  unity,  and  of  its  actual 
causal  correlations  with  the  body,  unchanged  in  their  essential 
character  and  unimpaired  in  their  validity.  In  attempting 
further  the  solution  of  these  metaphysical  problems,  I  had 
found  myself  irresistibly  carried  along  into  all  the  larger 
problems  of  a  cosmical  metaphysics.  After  all,  this  is  only 
saying  that  the  scientific  investigation  of  man's  mental  life 
had  issued  just  where  every  scientific  investigation  issues,  in 
the  great  and  deep  ocean  of  the  World's  Universal  Life.  In 
trying  to  understand  my  own  mental  being,  I  had  found  this 


542  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

being  intelligible  to  itself,  only  as  causally  related  to  the  physi- 
cal changes  of  the  body,  and  through  them  to  the  Being  of 
the  World.  In  a  word,  I  had  found  my  selfhood  inextricably 
interwoven  with  this  Being  of  the  World ;  and  yet,  in  just 
that  way  and  in  no  other,  did  I  have  all  the  reality,  unity, 
self-identity,  and  power  for  good  or  evil,  which  I  actually 
possessed.  But  when  such  an  all-inclusive  ontological  prob- 
lem is  thus  definitely  presented  to  the  mind  of  the  reflective 
thinker  of  to-day,  he  cannot  easily  so  far  escape  from  the 
Zeitgeist  as  not  to  raise  the  previous  question.  And  the 
previous  question  is  the  epistemological  problem. 

Can  man  know  Reality  ?  —  the  reality  that  is  objective,  in 
the  sense  of  being  extra-mental  and  not  to  be  identified  with 
a  passing  phase  of  the  knower's  mind.  For  let  it  not  be  for- 
gotten that  the  existence  and  the  characteristics  of  such  real- 
ity are  implicated  in  the  fundamental  duality  of  self  and 
not-self,  causally  related.  And  this  duality  had  been  found 
to  constitute  both  the  underlying  assumption  and  the  final 
conclusion  of  a  scientific  psychology.  But  this  duality  itself 
could  be  accounted  for  only  as  a  part  of  the  problem  of  a 
higher  and  more  comprehensive  Unity  of  Reality. 

The  answer  to  the  problem  of  the  "  Being  of  the  World," 
on  its  epistemological  side  —  the  question,  namely,  as  to  the 
possibility,  nature,  and  limits  of  man's  knowledge  as  bearing 
on  the  problem  of  reality — took  the  final  form  of  a  book  pub- 
lished in  1897  on  the  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge."  In  its 
Preface  I  ventured  to  speak  of  my  work  as  that  of  a  "  pioneer  " 
among  recent  writers  in  English  on  psychology  and  philos- 
ophy. The  word  was,  of  course,  not  intended  to  embody  the 
claims  of  a  discoverer,  but  rather  the  embarrassments  and 
difficulties  of  one  who  has  for  his  task  the  clearing  away  of 
obstacles,  —  and  this,  in  the  wish  and  the  hope  that  his  suc- 
cessors may  thereby  find  easier  paths  made  ready  for  them. 
It  still  seems  to  me,  as  it  did  then,  that  while  English  psy- 
chology and  philosophy  has  been  very  fruitful  in  works  on 


SUMMARY   AND   CONCLUSION  543 

Logic,  and  fairly  so  in  works  on  Metaphysics,  it  has  for  a  long 
time  neither  accomplished  nor  attempted  the  problem  of  a  true 
Urkenntnisstheorie.  It  was  the  effort  to  examine  the  experi- 
ence of  the  common  life  of  man  as  a  knower,  from  the  stand- 
point of  a  modern  science  of  psychology  and  with  a  view  to 
disclose  and  to  test  its  fundamental  assumptions,  which  I 
desired  to  make. 

In  the  "  Philosophy  of  Knowledge  "  I  stated  the  problem 
before  me  in  the  following  terms :  —  "a  philosophical  criti- 
cism of  knowledge,  with  a  view  to  point  out  its  origin  and 
nature  as  implicating  reality  ;  to  validate  it  by  reducing  to 
their  simplest  terms  and  arranging  in  a  harmonious  whole  its 
necessary  forms,  its  assumptions,  and  its  postulates ;  and  to 
mark  out  its  limits  by  further  criticism  and  especially  by  dis- 
tinguishing the  sources  and  kinds  of  error  and  of  half-truth." 
The  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  knowledge  was  introduced  by 
a  brief  critical  survey  of  the  history  of  opinion  and  of  the 
results  of  psychological  analysis.  This  history  seemed  to  me 
to  evince  the  impossibility  of  discrediting  the  cognitive  facul- 
ties of  man,  and  then  saving  to  knowledge,  or  to  faith,  or  to 
practical  postulates,  some  specially  favored  kind  of  cognition. 
Neither  do  I  believe  that  the  foundations  of  the  "  plain  man's 
consciousness  "  can  be  undermined  by  showing  its  objects  to 
be  "  appearances,"  and  confidence  still  be  reserved  in  the 
"  reality  "  set  forth  by  some  towering  superstructure  of  spec- 
ulative thought.  The  principle  of  self-consistency  is  of  the 
last  importance  to  reason.  It  is,  in  fact,  only  one  form  of 
stating  the  undying  self-confidence  of  reason  itself. 

I  intended  to  show  by  psychological  analysis  that  cognition 
is  not  mere  intellection ;  and  that  the  activity  of  something 
more  than  the  logical  processes  is  indispensable  to  the  origin 
and  growth  of  man's  cognitive  experience.  On  the  one  hand, 
there  is  no  knowledge  without  thought ;  knowledge  is  born  of 
thinking,  which  has  arrived  at  the  pausing  place  of  a  judgment, 
—  a  finished  product  of  the  mind's  synthetic  activity.  On  the 


544  A  THEORY  OF   REALITY 

other  hand,  the  result  can  be  called  "  knowledge  "  only  upon 
the  supposition  that  the  judgments  which  enter  into  the  pro- 
cesses of  reasoning  have  something  far  other  than  mere  cor- 
rectness of  form.  Every  judgment  of  the  cognitive  order  — 
whether  true  or  false  —  implicates  the  assumption  :  "What  is 
subjectively  united  in  my  act  of  judging  belongs  together  in 
the  unity  of  a  really  existent  world."  Moreover,  any  search- 
ing analysis  shows  that  feeling  and  willing  enter  into  every 
cognition,  as  essential  "  moments  "  of  it,  —  of  whatever  sort 
the  cognition  analyzed  may  be.  Feeling  is  not  external  to  cog- 
nition ;  nor  is  it  mere  impulse  or  influence  to  cognition ;  it  is 
also  an  inseparable  factor  of  every  cognitive  act.  The  cogni- 
tive judgment  is  reached  under  the  influence  of  subtle  forms 
of  affective  consciousness  ;  and  it  is  distinguished  as  cognitive 
only  as  it  is  more  or  less  tinged  with  emotional  content. 

But  especially  true  is  it  of  man's  experience  as  a  knower, 
that  it  comes  to  him  only  as  ceaselessly  active,  as  a  restless, 
striving,  and  achieving  Will.  In  a  word,  man's  whole  self  is 
concerned  in  all  his  cognitive  experience  ;  knowledge  is  an  atti- 
tude of  the  whole  self  toward  reality  ;  growth  in  knowledge  is 
dependent,  for  every  man,  upon  the  characteristic  development 
taken  by  his  entire  self.  So  that,  in  no  unmeaning  use  of  the 
words,  cognition  must  be  considered  as  a  quasi-ethical  achieve- 
ment involving  all  the  so-called  faculties  of  man. 

In  the  later  chapters  of  this  book  I  went  on  to  show  that 
ethical  and  sesthetical  momenta  enter  even  into ,  the  so- 
called  "  scientific "  knowledge  of  mankind.  So  that  the 
schism  between  the  ethical  and  the  cognitive  man,  which 
Kant  attempted  in  the  interests  of  morals  and  religion,  can 
no  more  be  perpetuated  or  justified  than  can  the  schism  which 
Mr.  Bradley  has  set  forth,  in  the  interests  of  metaphysical 
theory,  amidst  and  between  the  "  plain  man's  "  cognitive  con- 
sciousness of  so-called  "  appearances  "  and  his  own  specula- 
tive construction  of  "  Reality." 

If,  however,  we  proceed  to  divide  human  cognitions  accord- 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  545 

ing  to  the  most  fundamental  differences  in  their  objects,  there 
are  two  main  classes  to  be  considered.  These  two  are  the 
"  Knowledge  of  Things  and  the  Knowledge  of  Self."  As  to 
the  character  and  amounts  of  the  ontological  implicates  in  both, 
they  differ  in  very  important  respects.  Out  of  the  same  roots 
of  man's  total  experience  there  emerges,  by  the  active  processes 
of  knowledge,  the  most  fundamental  of  all  our  distinctions  in 
the  kinds  of  Being.  This  distinction  itself  has  its  origin  in  the 
nature  of  the  mind  as  related  to  other  realities ;  and  yet  the 
distinction  can  never  be  realized  except  as  the  mind  itself,  by 
its  own  discriminating,  segregating,  and  unifying  activities, 
brings  it  to  pass.  It  is  born  in  knowledge ;  it  is  inseparable 
from  knowledge ;  and  it  is  both  the  assumption  of  every  cog- 
nition and  also  the  conclusion  to  which  every  cognition  returns. 
For  the  reality  of  the  subject  and  the  reality  of  the  object,  and 
the  actuality  of  that  relation  between  subject  and  object  which 
is  essential  to  knowledge,  are  an  indubitable  cognitive  experi- 
ence. That  I,  the  knower,  really  am,  and  that  my  object  really 
is,  and  that  subject  and  object  actually  stand  in  this  unique 
relation  —  all  this  is  only  to  enumerate  the  implicates  of  every 
particular  act  of  knowledge. 

When,  however,  the  object  of  my  cognition  is  some  Thing 
and  not  simply  some  state  of  the  Self,  what  I  know  or  know 
about  the  object  is  of  a  different  order,  evaluation,  and  accepted 
validity.  Perception  of  things  by  the  senses  —  the  envisage- 
ment  of  the  not-self  —  believes,  indeed,  and  must  believe,  in 
itself  as  an  indubitable  experience  of  the  trans-subjective. 
But  "while  the  knowledge  of  Self  may  attain  an  intuitive 
penetration  to  the  heart  of  Reality,  the  knowledge  of  Things 
remains  an  analogical  interpretation  of  their  apparent  behavior 
into  terms  of  a  real  nature  corresponding,  in  important  char- 
acteristics, to  our  own."  Thus  does  the  self -like  nature  of 
things,  as  known  to  man,  seem  to  be  an  integral  part  of  the 
assumptions  necessary  to  all  the  self's  knowledge  of  things. 

Further  light  is  thrown  upon  this  contention  by  an  examina- 

35 


546  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

tion  of  the  degrees  and  limits  of  knowledge.  For  I  went  on 
to  show  that  there  are  degrees  of  that  realized  attitude  of 
men  toward  what  is  actual,  which  we  are  accustomed  to  call 
"  knowledge ; "  and  that  these  degrees  are  to  be  measured  by 
a  certain  ideal  standard  of  perfection.  "The  immediate 
knowledge  of  the  Self  by  itself  is,  in  actuality,  the  realized 
ideal  of  knowledge."  And  as  the  different  kinds  and  branches 
of  the  experience  of  man  as  a  knower  draw  nearer  to,  or  re- 
cede farther  away  from,  this  central  light,  they  gain  or  lose  in 
the  certainty  of  knowledge.  For  it  is  with  myself,  as  in  active 
changing  relations,  to  my  Self  and  to  that  which  I  can  only 
recognize  as  "  the  Other,"  that  actuality  abides.  Transcend- 
ent entities  and  principles,  made  use  of  in  the  interests  of  ex- 
plaining experience  in  general,  must  therefore  be  derived  from 
a  basis  of  concrete  experiences  with  acknowledged  actualities. 

The  figurative  words  "  derived  from  a  basis  of  concrete  ex- 
periences," and  all  similar  phrases,  suggest  the  part  which 
reasoning  plays  in  the  growth  of  human  knowledge.  A  phil- 
osophy of  knowledge  must,  therefore,  examine  critically  the 
postulates  of  all  reasoning,  with  a  view  to  see  what  they  tell 
us  as  to  the  validity  of  all  our  mediate  knowledge.  Science, 
in  all  its  branches,  is  a  matter  of  mediate  and  derived  cogni- 
tions. These  logical  postulates  of  all  mediate  knowledge  are 
the  so-called  "  Principle  of  Identity  and  Difference  "  and  the 
"  Principle  of  Sufficient  Reason,"  —  as  considered  from  the 
epistemological  points  of  view.  By  a  realistic  criticism  of 
these  postulates  I  showed  that,  according  to  their  very  nature 
and  universal  application,  they  amount  to  this  conviction : 
"  The  principles  of  all  Reality  —  including  reality  not-my-Self 
—  and  the  principles  of  my  thinking  must  be  the  same." 

As  for  the  Principle  of  Identity,  it  appeared  to  me  signifi- 
cant of  the  self's  recognition  of  its  own  presuppositionless 
form  of  mental  life,  when  in  the  act  of  judging  cognitively. 
In  this  meaning  of  the  words,  at  least  a  momentary  self- 
identity  is  the  predicate  which  knowledge  assigns  to  all  that  is 


SUMMARY   AND  CONCLUSION  547 

judged  really  to  exist.  But  this  principle,  when  taken  into 
connection  with  the  universal  fact  of  change,  guarantees  the 
continued  existence  of  every  concrete  reality  as  a  series  of 
"  se(f-produced  "  but  "  o^er-related  "  changes,  which  are  con- 
formable to  law,  and  which  maintain  the  identity  of  the  par- 
ticular reality  only  by  such  conformity.  This,  it  seems  to  me, 
is  to  conceive  of  every  Thing  as  being  real  by  virtue  of  its  self- 
consistency  after  the  pattern  of  the  self-identical  Self. 

The  practical  efficiency  of  that  law  of  mental  life  which, 
subjectively  regarded,  is  called  the  "  Principle  of  Sufficient 
Reason, "  depends  upon  the  mind's  rational  determination  to 
reach  the  goal  of  knowledge  —  namely,  the  establishment  of 
causal  relations  that  have  truth  in  reality.  But  "  causality  " 
is  itself  no  invincible  bond  that,  in  a  quasi-external  way,  seizes 
hold  of  things  and  forces  them  into  a  Unity.  It  is,  the 
rather,  a  way  of  conceiving  the  "  Being  of  the  World  "  after  the 
analogy  of  the  Life  of  a  Self,  as  a  striving  toward  a  completer 
self-realization  under  the  consciously  accepted  motif  of  imma- 
nent Ideas.  The  principle,  as  a  postulate  of  all  reasoning, 
and  so  of  all  science,  implies,  (1)  some  sort  of  unitary  Being 
for  the  really  existent ;  (2)  that  this  Being  is  Will ;  (3)  that 
the  differentiation  of  the  activity  of  this  Will,  and  the  connec- 
tion of  the  differentiated  "  momenta,"  —  the  separate  beings  of 
the  world,  —  is  teleological  and  rational,  like  that  of  our  own 
Self. 

Thus,  in  all  its  work  of  generalization  and  inference,  I 
saw  that  the  mind  of  man  carries  over  to  its  concepts  the 
potencies  of  feeling  and  will  with  which  the  Self  knows  itself 
to  be  endowed,  and  which  it  analogically  feels  obliged  to  rec- 
ognize as  essential  to  the  being  of  Things. 

When  we  bring  ourselves  frankly  and  courageously  to  face 
the  difficulties  which  the  current  agnosticism  opposes  to  our 
confidence  in  human  knowledge,  we  find  them  to  be  quite 
other  than  those  with  which  it  is  customary  to  conjure.  As 
to  the  possibility  of  transcending  experience  and  so  reaching 


548  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

the  Real,  I  showed  that  in  the  meaning  of  the  words  as 
employed  by  the  agnostic  argument  experience  is  always  and 
necessarily  transcended  by  knowledge.  Indeed,  the  very 
question  whicli  agnosticism  too  often  neglects  to  consider, 
and  which  it  must  always  fail  to  answer,  is  precisely  this: 
"  Why  does  experience,  in  order  to  explain  itself,  need  to  tran- 
scend itself  as  mere  fact  ?  "  For  without  actually  reaching  and 
grasping,  by  all  those  potencies  .of  the  soul  which  the  act  of 
cognition  involves,  the  real  conditions,  universal  laws,  and  re- 
lated entities  of  the  Self  and  of  Things,  we  cannot  even  form 
the  conception  of  human  (cognitive}  "  experience."  Some  criti- 
cal estimate  of  the  ontological  implicates  of  knowledge  is,  in- 
deed, a  necessary  part  of  every  critical  theory  of  knowledge. 
But  this  very  estimate  shows  us  a  transcendent  Real,  present  in 
experience,  whenever  the  life  of  consciousness  becomes  a  com- 
pleted act  of  knowledge.  If  we  inquire  as  to  how  this  can  be, 
we  find  that  the  entire  complex  condition  of  the  subject,  in  the 
act  of  cognition,  involves  and  guarantees  the  Being  of  the  trans- 
subjective  existent.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  all  knowledge  of 
the  nature  and  transactions  of  the  non-self  is  analogical,  a 
true  and  full  knowledge  of  Self  is  the  prime  condition  of  a 
valid  and  ever  larger  knowledge  of  the  ultimate  nature  and 
actual  transactions  of  all  Reality. 

I  then  went  on  to  show  in  detail  that  neither  scepticism, 
nor  agnosticism,  nor  criticism,  ought  to  shake  man's  confi- 
dence in  the  validity  of  his  knowledge  as  involving  this 
general  ontological  postulate:  The  Being  of  the  World  is 
some  kind  of  a  Unity,  like  that  of  the  Self,  because  known  to 
be  self-differentiating  in  accordance  with  immanent  Ideas. 
Alleged  "  antinomies,"  and  alleged  or  genuine  distinctions 
between  truth  and  error,  do  not  penetrate  the  heart  of  man's 
cognitive  experience  so  as  to  let  the  life-blood  out  of  this 
central  source  of  all  his  potency  as  a  knower  of  the  truth  of 
things.  All  the  derived  and  subordinate  "  criteria  of  knowl- 
edge," so-called,  are  included  in  the  persistent  effort  of  the 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  549 

individual  and  of  the  race  to  arrive  at  an  harmonious  and 
satisfactory  experience  that  is  based  on  this  fundamental 
postulate.  Every  correct  view  of  the  nature,  origin,  limits, 
and  implicates  of  man's  cognitive  powers  has  thus  an 
undoubtedly  important  teleology.  As  we  rise  into  the  higher 
regions  and  dig  down  deeper  about  the  foundations  of  human 
knowledge,  the  epistemological  problem  is  answered  by  refer- 
ence to  the  aims  of  the  Being  that  realizes  the  highest  and 
best  conception  of  Life.  u  Cognition  is  part  of  the  very  life 
of  the  Self ;  but  it  is  not  the  whole  of  that  life ;  it  serves  that 
life  in  its  striving  after  the  realization  of  ideals.  Thus  are  we 
prepared  to  contemplate  the  objects  of  man's  cognition,  not 
merely  as  interconnected  beings  and  transactions  obedient  to 
law  in  bare  fact,  but  also  as  moments  in  the  Life  of  a  Being 
that  is  actually  realizing  its  own  immanent  ideas." 

Finally,  if  one  elects  to  pursue  his  agnostic  doubtings  with 
a  complete  sincerity  of  feeling  and  with  strict  logical  con- 
sistency, they  lead  him  into  that  black  gulf  which  has  no 
light,  no  bottom,  no  discernible  sides,  no  outlook  upward ;  in 
it,  all  forms  of  science  and  all  practical  cognitions,  as  well  as- 
ethical  and  religious  faiths,  are  totally  lost.  This  is  for  the 
rational  mind  to  perish  utterly,  through  a  seeming  devotion  to 
the  exigencies  of  logic  ;  —  while  at  the  same  time  being  guilty 
of  the  irrational  from  -the  epistemological  point  of  view,  and 
from  the  practical  point  of  view,  of  coquetting  and  dissipating 
one's  virility  in  companionship  with  the  absurd.  "  Whereas, 
if  we  will  once  admit  with  hopeful  intelligence  and  reasonable 
cheerfulness  what  we  are  bound  to  admit  in  some  manner  and 
to  an  indefinitely  large  extent,  —  namely,  the  correspondence 
or  systematic  relationship  of  the  cognitive  Self  with  that  all- 
inclusive  Reality  which  encompasses  it,  when  conceived  of  as 
an  Absolute  Self, —  then  all  the  separate  and  subordinate 
forms  of  relation  are  taken  up  into  and  merged  in  a  relation 
between  the  individual  and  the  Universal  —  both  cognized  in 
terms  of  Self."  For,  essentially  considered,  knowledge  is 


550  A   THEORY  OF   REALITY 

a  species  of  intercourse  between  selves.  And  if  human  cog- 
nitive experience  is  all  relative  to  the  knower,  and  of  related 
things,  it  is  none  the  less  "the  establishment  of  a  relation 
between  the  Revealer,  the  Absolute  Self,  and  the  Self  to  whom 
the  revelation  comes." 

And  now,  in  the  discussions  just  closing,  I  have  tried  to 
show  that  the  epistemological  principles  of  my  earlier  book 
are  confirmed  by  a  critical  examination  of  all  those  charac- 
teristics of  Reality  which  all  men,  whether  in  the  exercise 
of  their  naive  cognitive  powers  or  as  acute  and  penetrat- 
ing students  of  the  positive  sciences,  actually  accept.  My 
"  Theory  of  Reality "  is,  in  fact,  the  detailed  ontological 
doctrine  of  that  very  assumption  with  which  the  philosophy 
of  knowledge  found  all  human  experience,  both  ordinary  and 
scientific,  to  be  penetrated.  All  things  and  all  selves  are  vir- 
tually understood  by  the  knower,  man,  to  belong  to,  to  be  man- 
ifestations of,  dependencies  upon,  this  Absolute  Self.  And 
developing  self-consciousness,  as  well  as  the  progressive  seiz- 
ure of  the  truth  of  the  reality  of  things,  leads  the  mind  of 
man  to  recognize  that  the  ultimate  Being  of  the  World  is  its 
own  indwelling  and  absolute  spiritual  Life,  —  the  Life  of  a 
self-conscious  Will  and  Mind  which  stands  related  to  that 
complex  of  objects  which  are  made  known  in  all  human 
experience,  as  their  One  and  Ultimate  Ground. 

Throughout  these  prolonged  investigations  into  the  nature 
of  the  Real  I  have  steadily  Maintained  my  confidence  in  the 
unity  of  man's  being,  and  in  the  Unity  of  Reality  which  phil- 
osophy aims  to  find  and  to  expound.  I  cannot  allow  that 
there  is  a  schism  between  the  philosophy  of  the  Real  and  the 
philosophy  of  the  Ideal,  between  general  metaphysics,  with 
its  two  branches  of  the  Philosophy  of  Nature  and  the  Phil- 
osophy of  Mind,  and  the  metaphysics  of  Ethics,  ^Esthetics, 
and  of  Religion.  For  man,  as  fitted  for  knowledge  and  for 
conduct,  is  one ;  and  the  World,  in  which  he  thinks  and  acts 
and  hopes  and  fears  and  dreams  and  prays  and  worships,  is 


SUMMARY  AND  CONCLUSION  551 

One.  But  the  phenomena  and  principles  of  ethics,  aesthetics, 
and  religion  have  much  more  to  tell  us  as  to  that  Being  of 
the  World  which  is  known  to  science  in  terms  of  the  Absolute 
Self.  Its  higher  spiritual  characteristics,  if  such  are  to  be 
found,  must  be  discerned  and  harmonized  by  a  critical  reflec- 
tion which  deals  chiefly  with  the  ideals  of  man.  Not  as 
though  realities  could  either  be,  or  be  known,  in  separation 
from  ideas ;  or  as  though  the  Real  were  not  ideal,  or  the  Ideal 
had  no  place  in  reality.  Yet  the  whole  being  of  man  must 
tell  its  story,  and  find  itself  satisfied,  if  possible,  in  the  phil- 
osophical conception  of  the  Absolute.  This  conception,  there- 
fore, must  get  its  more  spiritual  content  of  truth  and  beauty 
from  the  study  of  Ethics,  ^Esthetics,  and  the  Philosophy  of 
Religion. 


INDEX 


ABSOLUTE,  the,  mystical  conception  of, 
160  f.,  450  f . ;  not  the  unrelated,  170  f ., 
493  f.,  497,  499  ;  but  the  source  of  rela- 
tions, 170  f . ;  and  a  system  of  relations, 
173  f.,  333:  as  a  life  in  time,  208  f., 
212  f.;  and  a  Unity,  335  f.,  415  f.;  con- 
ceived of,  as  a  Self,  397  f.,  413  f.,  415  f., 
418,  489  f. ;  or  as  a  material  whole, 
456  f .,  460  f .,  509  f. ;  relations  of,  to  the 
World,  493  f.,  501  f.,  507,  509  f.,  520  f., 
524  f. ;  as  source  of  relations,  499  f., 
507,  512  f . ;  as  omniscient,  501  f . 

Activity,  as  "core"  of  Being,  123  f., 
257  f . ;  as  essential  to  substance,  125  f. ; 
self-felt,  the  origin  of  the  category  of 
force,  257  f.,  260  f. 

Actuality,  as  distinguished  from  phenom- 
ena, 34  f.,  37  f.,  42  f.,  46,  54 ;  as  applied 
to  the  Self,  39  f.,  42  f.,  481  f.;  of  the 
Ideal,  473  f.,  479  f. 

"Affinity,"  meaning  of  the  chemical,  286. 

Anthropomorphism,  as  respects  the  cate- 
gory of  force,  261  f.;  and  of  forms  and 
laws.  352  f.,  354  f. ;  and  final  purpose, 
372  f. 

Appearance  (see  "Phenomenon"). 

Aristotle,  the  title,  "metaphysics,"  16 f.; 
on  motion,  226. 

Atomic  Theory,  metaphysics  of,  442  f., 
444  f.,  446. 

Axiom,  nature  of  the,  307  f .,  311  f.  314  f . 

BAIN,  on  force  and  matter,  437. 

Balfour,  Mr.,  on  the  aesthetical  element  in 
metaphysics,  60. 

Becoming,  Principle  of  (see  Change). 

Being,  of  the  particular,  111  f.,  123  f., 
132  f.;  conception  of  the  "pure,"  112, 
122  f.;  of  "Things,"  116  f. 

Berkeley,  ontology  of  his  idealism,  8,  97. 

Bernoulli,  on  acfio  in  distans,  275. 

Boyle,  on  relation  of  experience  to  meta- 
physics, 28. 

Bradley,  Mr.,  on  reality  and  appearance, 
9 ;  his  doctrine  of  the  categories,  104  f . ; 


and  of  the  ground  of  cognition,  114;  his 
doctrine  of  "self-consistency,"  121  f., 
158,  323;  on  the  concept  of  space,  229. 

CATEGORIES,  the,  as  subject  matter  of 
metaphysics,  25  f.;  Things  as  the  har- 
mony of,  64  f.,  84  f.;  enumeration  of, 
67,  84  f.,  162  f.;  inseparable  in  reality, 
87  f.,  395  f. ;  but  connected  in  cogni- 
tion, 88  f.,  492  f.;  yet  independent  in 
characteristics,  94  f. ;  and  interrelated 
and  united,  98  f . ;  proofs  of  the  unity  of, 
106  f.;  as  products  of  evolution,  222  f. 

Causality,  conception  of,  261  f .,  266,  360  f . ; 
as  applied  to  body  and  mind,  411  f.; 
the  totality  of  Being  as  a  Cause,  412  f., 
506  f.,  509,  510  f. 

Cell,  behavior  of  the,  287. 

Challis,  Prof.,  on  actio  in  distans,  275,  276. 

Change,  as  a  category,  140;  as  a  principle 
of  Becoming,  141  f.,  151  f.,  154  f.,  158; 
is  actual,  141  f .,  148  f. ;  and  matter  of 
cognitive  experience,  143  f.,  148  f.;  as 
applied  to  Self,  143,  145  f.;  and  to 
Things,  143, 145  f . ;  limitation  of,  149  f . ; 
as  in  a  system,  150  f. 

Clerk  Maxwell,  on  the  conception  of 
energy,  272  f .,  282  f. ;  and  of  matter, 
431  f.,  433,  435. 

Criticism,  its  relations  to  metaphysics, 
ft. 

Cognition  (see  Knowledge). 

Cotta,  on  union  of  force  and  matter,  436. 

DESCARTES,  his  "First  Law  of  Nature," 

433  f. 

Ding-an-Sich,  conception  of,  112  f .,  122  f . 
Du   Bois-Reymond,   on  actio    in  distans, 

275;    and   union  of  force  and  matter, 

436  f. 
Duhring,  on  quantity  of  the  World-mass, 

429. 

ENERGY,  physical  conception  of,  269  f., 
278,  431  f.;  as  "kinetic  and  potential," 


554 


INDEX 


278  f. :  conservation  and  correlation  of, 
280  f .,  283  f. ;  the  chemical,  285  f . 

Eucken,  on  hatred  of  metaphysics,  11. 

Evolution,  conception  of,  requires  "time," 
200  f.  ;  as  applied  to  the  categories, 
222  f .  ;  biological  doctrine  of,  377  f., 
379  f.,  467  f.,  470  f . 

Experience,  the  cognitive,  of  Reality,  19  f .? 
57  f.,  61  f.,  63  f.,  68  f.,  84  f.,  114  f., 
143  f.,  260  f.;  unity  of,  21  f.;  relation 
of,  to  metaphysics,  28  f. 

FARADAY,  his  conception  of  the  atom, 
442  f. 

Final  Purpose,  conception  of,  in  meta- 
physics, 363  f .,  384  f. ;  differences  of  po- 
sition regarding,  363  f . ;  in  the  World's 
course,  366  f.,  380  f.,  390  f. ;  psycholog- 
ical genesis  of,  369  f . ;  application  of,  to 
the  Self,  370  f. ;  and  to  external  Nature, 
374  f.,  376  f.,  386  f.,  relation  of  biology 
to,  377  f . ;  objections  to,  381  f . ;  relation 
to  mechanism,  384  f. 

Force,  as  a  category,  94  f.,  253  f.,263  f., 
269  f.,  407  f.;  implied  in  the  "occu- 
pancy" of  space,  251  f.;  and  in  all  the 
categories,  253  f .,  270  f. ;  origin  of  con- 
ception of,  255  f.,  260  f.,  273  f . ;  as  "  sub- 
stantial causality,"  261  f.,  266;  physical 
conception  of,  264  f.,  269  f.,  280  f. ;  as 
implying  unity,  270  f.,  288  f.,  407  ; 
distribution  of,  272  f.,  284  f . ;  as  act io  in 
distans,  274  f.,  276  f. 

Form,  a  category,  337  f.;  genesis  of  con- 
ception of,  340;  reality  of,  346  f.  ;  as 
applied  to  the  Self,  347  f . ;  and  to  Things, 
348  f . ;  as  ideal,  350  f . 

Freedom,  in  relation  to  the  Absolute,  513  f. 

GEOMETRY,  the  Euclidean,  304  f.,  308  f., 
311  f . ;  the  modern.  315  f.;  dependence 
of,  on  number,  318  f. 

Goethe,  on  the  mystery  of  nature,  45. 

Gravity,  the  conception  of,  277  f. 

H.ECKEL,  on  protoplasm,  467  f. 

Hegel,   his  theory  of  the   categories,   85, 

88,  94. 

Heraclitus,  his  principle  of  Becoming,  140. 
Hodgson,  on  conception  of  metaphysics,  17. 
Hume,  his  view  of  metaphysics,  2,  12  f. 
Huygens,  on  conservation  of  energy.  280. 

IDEA,  as  immanent  in  reality,  155  f .,  340  f., 
350  f.,  354  f.,  356  f . ;  forms  and  laws 
imply  the  category  of,  341  f.,  351  f.;  the 
moral,  391  f.;  actuality  of  the,  473  f., 
477  f.,  483  f. 


Idealism,  ontology  of,  245  f.,  473  f.,  477  f., 

483  f.,  488  f. 
Identity,  of  things,  155  f.;   and  of   Self, 

156  f . ;  as  applied  to  the  Absolute,  500  f ., 

524  f. 

Inertia,  physical  conception  of,  432  f. 
Infinite,  idea  of,  as  applied  to  time,  202  f. 

KANT,  his  views  on  metaphysics,  4  f.,  26  ; 
and  its  method,  26 ;  his  conception  of 
Ding-an-Sich,  44  f.,  103  f. ;  on  the  mys- 
tery of  Nature,  45;  metaphysics  of  his 
"categorical  imperative,"  59  f. ;  his  doc- 
trine of  the  categories,  84  f.,  98  f.,  102, 
163  f . ;  and  of  the  unity  of  the  world, 
102  f . ;  his  treatment  of  relation,  163  f. ; 
of  space  and  time,  181  f.,  203  f.,  219  f.; 
and  the  mathematical  conceptions,  299, 
310,  312,  331;  on  the  laws  of  nature, 
346,  361 ;  his  treatment  of  final  purpose, 
373  f.,  376  f.,  386  f.,  389  f. 

Knowledge,  always  ontological,  10  f .,  19  f., 
57  f .,  58,  68  f .,  84  f.,  124  f . ;  as  interpre- 
tative, 22  f. ;  and  involving  all  the  cate- 
gories, 86  f.,  99  f . ;  of  the  related,  165  f ., 
172  f. 

LAW,  a  category,  337  f.,  359  f.;  so-called 
"reign"  of,  339  f.  359  f.,  361;  genesis 
of  conception  of.  340  f . ;  as  applied  to 
Self,  347  f. ;  and  to  Things,  349  f.,  361. 

Leibnitz,  on  conservation  of  energy,  280. 

Lewes,  on  conception  of  force,  437. 

Life,  metaphysical  conception  of,  460  f. ; 
biological  view  of,  462  f.,  464  f. 

Lotze,  his  definition  of  the  actual,  62  f . ;  on 
the  ground  of  cognition,  114;  his  con- 
ception of  time,  186,  206;  and  of  space, 
221;  and  of  force,  288,  437  ;  on  the  recon- 
ciliation of  mechanism  and  Idea,  388  f. 

MASS,  physical  conception  of,  424  f . ;  psy- 
chological genesis  of,  426  f . ;  as  measur- 
able quantity,  427  f . 

Materialism,  420  f.,  448  f.,  453  f. 

Matter,  conception  of,  in  metaphysics,  419 
f.,  422,  423  f.,  429  f.,  437,  439  f . ;  mate- 
rialistic view  of,  420  f .,  448  f . ;  physicist's 
conception  of,  423  f.,  432  f.,  446  f. ;  es- 
sential properties  of,  424  f.,  446  f.;  in- 
volves energy,  431  f.,  438  f.;  yet  is  inert, 
432  f.,  438;  origin  of,  in  experience,  435 
f. ;  as  a  substrate,  438  f.,  446  f.,  449, 
460  f.,  466  f.;  with  qualitatively  differ- 
ent elements,  442  f.,  444  f.;  not  mere 
centres  of  force,  442  f . ;  insufficiency  of 
the  conception,  453  f. 

Measure  (see  Quantity). 


INDEX 


555 


Metaphysics,  the  justification  of,  1  f.,  6  f., 
10  f.,  19  f.,  108  f.;  Hume's  view  of,  2; 
Kant's  view  of,  4  f . ;  Hegel's  view  of,  6 ; 
the,  of  ordinary  consciousness,  7  f. ;  ob- 
jections to,  9  f.,  13  f. ;  the  conception  of, 
16  f.,  19  f.;  its  functions,  21  f.  ;  the 
method  of,  24  f.,  28  f. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  on  the  conception  of 
substance,  120  f.,  128  f. 

Mohr,  on  actio  in  distans,  275. 

Motion,  as  actual,  226  f.,  233  f.,  240  f., 
251  f.;  Trendelenburg's  theory  of,  226; 
universality  of,  233  f.,  242  f.  ;  sensation- 
complexes  of,  234  f. ;  as  absolute  and 
relative,  240  f.;  as  ultimate  fact,  251  f. 

NATURE,  conception  of,  45,  359  f.,  452  f.,  as 
a  mechanism,  386  f.,  468  f . ;  as  personi- 
fied, 453  f.,  456  f .,  486  f. ;  and  an  Ab- 
solute Whole,  456  f .,  471  f. ;  or  Infinite 
Spirit,  458  f.,  468  f.,  486  f . ;  an  Ideal, 
487  f. 

Newcomb,  Prof.  S.,  his  conception  of 
"Force,"  268;  of  energy,  269;  and  of 
space,  304. 

Newton,  on  the  definition  of  "Force,"  268; 
and  actio  in  distans,  274;  his  conception 
of  gravity,  277  f.,  and  of  "  Matter,"  277, 
282. 

Number,  conception  of,  as  related  to  Quan- 
tity, 298  f.,  324;  science  of,  318  f.,  330 
f. ;  its  essence  is  in  counting,  319  f.,  322 
f ..  325  f. ;  psychological  origin  of,  319  f., 
321  f . ;  as  applied  to  reality,  325  f . 

PARMEXIDES,  his  conception  of  Nature, 

454  f . 
Paulsen,  his  conception  of  the  categories, 

222  f.,  228. 
Phenomenon,  in  contrast  with  the  actual, 

34  f.,  42  f.,  46,  54;  origin  of  conception 

of,  35  f.,  37  f.,  48 ;  as  applied  to  the  Self, 

39  f.,  42  f.,  48;  and  to  Things,  50  f. 
Philosophy,  nature  of,  3  f.,  108. 
Physics,  the  metaphysics  of,   264  f. ;    as 

science  of  dynamics,  265  f. 
Poisson,  M.,  definition  of  inertia,  434  f. 
Property,    conception    of,    as    applied    to 

Things,  72  f. 

QUALITY,  of  things,  111  f.,  133  f.,  not  sepa- 
rable from  things,  133  f. ;  implies  rela- 
tion, 135  f. 

Quantity,  conception  of.  as  applied  to 
Reality,  285  f.,  297  f.,  317;  scientific  use 
of,  294,  301  f.,  307  f.,  316  f. ;  origin  of 
conception  of,  299  f . ;  as  relative,  305  f . 


REALITY,  as  involved  in  experience,  8  f., 
49  f.,  61  f.,  67  f.,  84  f.,  88  f.,  91  f.,  124 
f.,  170  f.,  201  f.,  260  f.,  408  f.,  413  f.,  475 
f.;  not  an  abstraction,  18  f.,  170  f.;  as 
cause  of  phenomena,  49  f.,  254  f. ;  con- 
ception of,  analyzed,  57  f.,  60  f.,  68  f., 
76  f.,  84  f.,  394  f.  ;  not  mere  process,  76; 
nor  mere  law,  76  f. ;  nor  mere  content 
of  consciousness,  77  f. ;  nor  inscrutable 
essence,  78  ;  nor  merely  negative,  79  f . ; 
as  fact,  81 ;  as  agent,  81  f . ;  as  agree- 
ment with  law,  82;  as  harmony  of  the 
categories,  84  f.,  91  f.,  99  f .,  107  f. ;  not 
the  Unrelated,  105  f.,  164  f.,  170  f.,  201 
f.,  307,  497  f.;  as  "in  space  and 
time,"  178  f.,  207  f.,  235,  237  f.,  408  f. ; 
necessarily  dynamical,  254  f . ;  and  im- 
plying force,  260  f.,  289  f.,  293,  367;  and 
forms  and  laws,  343  f.,  347  f.  ;  and  final 
purpose,  367  f. ;  doctrine  of  spheres  of, 
394  f.,  401  f .,  408  f .  ;  as  a  Spiritual  Life, 
408  f.,  417  f.,  449  f.;  and  a  Unity,  413, 
414  f . ;  and  an  Idea,  475  f . 

Relation  as  "  mother  "  of  the  categories,  160 
f. ;  general  nature  of,  162  f . ;  Kant's  treat- 
ment of,  163  f. ;  meaning  of,  in  reality, 
164  f.,  170  f.,  174  f. ;  knowledge  of,  165 
f . ;  as  applied  to  the  Absolute,  170  f . ; 
to  the  Self,  172  f.  ;  applied  to  things  in 
space  and  time,  201  f. 

Ribot,  view  of  metaphysics,  17. 

Riehl,  on  sources  of  metaphysics,  29;  con- 
ception of  reality,  74;  and  of  quantity, 
428. 

Rosmini,  his  conception  of  philosophy,  17. 

Royce,  Prof.,  the  basis  of  metaphysics,  20. 

ScHELLiNG.on  final  purpose  in  nature,  374; 
his  conception  of  matter,  440. 

Schopenhauer,  on  the  principles  of  "  indi- 
viduation,"  132,  214  f.;  on  space,  214  f.; 
on  the  world  as  Idea,  346;  his  "  Will-to- 
live,"  377  f. 

Science,  objections  of,  to  metaphysics,  9  f. 

Segner,  as  quoted  by  Kant,  45. 

Self,  conception  of,  in  metaphysics,  31  f., 
121  f .,  143  f.,  209  f.,  231,  395  f",  409  f .,  412 
(and  passim ) ;  development  of  conception 
of,  36  f .,  41  f .,  404,  406  f . :  as  a  "  phenome- 
non," 39  f. ;  and  subject  of  change,  143 
f.,  145  f.,  215  f. ;  but  self-relating,  172  f . ; 
as  existent  in  time,  201  f.,  212  f.;  yet 
"absolute,"  209  f.,  397  f.;  as  existent  in 
space,  216  f .,  219  f . ;  and  an  active  prin- 
ciple, 231;  the  Absolute  Self,  397  f.,  405 
f..  489  f.;  and  as  Spirit,  400  f.,  408  f., 
458  f. ;  varying  conceptions  of,  408  f . ; 
the  actuality  of,  481  f. 


556 


INDEX 


Space,  reality  as  "  being  in,"  88  f.,  178  f., 
214  f.,  249  f . ;  occupation  of,  by  things, 
90  f.,  251  f.;  considered  as  a  "medium," 
178  f.,  215;  Kantian  conception  of,  181 
f.,  214  f. ;  as  principle  of  differentia- 
tion, 214  f.,  218  f.,  225  f.,  2-38,  245  f . ; 
real  nature  of,  216  f.,  227  f.,  233  f . ; 
ethical  and  social  bearings  of  the  cate- 
gory of,  216  f. ;  as  applied  to  the  Self, 
216"f.,  219  f.,  222  f  ,224  f. ;  development 
of  concept  of,  229  f. ;  reality  of  234  f., 

242  f.,  311;  as   assumed   in  chemistry, 

243  f . ;  divisibility   of,   247   f.;  dimen- 
sions of,  248  f . 

Spencer,  Herbert,  his  philosophy  ontolog- 
ical,  6 ;  conception  of  reality,  73  f . ;  and 
of  force,  437. 

Spirit,  as  the  "essence"  of  the  Self,  400 
f .,  407  f.,  457  f. ;  and  of  the  Being  of  the 
World,  414  f.,  418,  457,  460  f . ;  the  In- 
finite, 458  f. 

Substantiality,    metaphysical    use   of,   73, 

111  f.,  128  f . ;  conception  of,  as  applied 
to  things,  117  f.,  128  f . ;  as  applied  to 
Self,  136. 

TEICHMUL.LER,  on  relations  of  metaphysics 
to  experience,  28 ;  on  problem  of  reality, 
74;  and  concept  of  substance,  127  f. ;  and 
of  space,  231 ;  on  meaning  of  interaction, 
358. 

Teleology  (see  "  Final  Purpose  "). 

Theory  of  Reality,  the  goal  of  metaphys- 
ical system,  29  f.,  75,  109  f.,  522  f.; 
practical  benefits  of,  32  f. ;  limitations 
of,  522  f. 

Thing,  development  of  conception  of,  36  f., 

112  f.;  as  a  reality,  50  f.,  64   f.,  68  f., 
130   f. ;   involves   the   harmony    of    the 
categories,  64  f.,  84  f.,232;  knowledge 
of,  and  of  Self,  69  f .,  401  f . ;  properties 
of  a,  72  f.,  113  f.,  401  f.,  447  f.;  as  sub- 
stance and  qualities,  113  f.,  117  f.,  123  f., 
130  f.;  and  subject  to   change,  143  f.; 
an  existence  in  space,  225  f.,  232  f.,  234 
f. ;  implies  forms  and  laws,  343  f.,  347  f . ; 
and  final  purpose,  368  f.,  375  f . ;  essen- 
tial self-hood  of,  401  f.;  although  of  in- 
ferior order,  403  f.,  414  f.,  447  f. 


Thomson,  Sir  Wm.,  his  conception  of  Force, 
267 ;  and  of  Matter,  423,  445. 

Time,  considered  as  a  "medium,"  178  f., 
209  f. ;  origin  of  consciousness  of,  184  f., 
187  f.;  actuality  of,  186  f.,  189  f.,  191  f., 
209  f. ;  assumptions  involved  in  cate- 
gory of,  195  f.,  203  f.,  207  f.;  infinity  of, 
202  f. 

Trendelenburg,  on  the  category  of  motion, 
226. 

Truth,  its  implicate  of  reality,  58  f. 

Tyndall,  on  conservation  of  energy,  281; 
and  nature  of  the  atom,  448. 

UNITY,  the,  which  Reality  has,  100  f.,  133 
f.,  176  f.,  329  f.,  333  f.,  359  f.,  413  f . ;  of 
the  categories,  105  f.,  132  f. ;  as  a  system 
of  relations,  176  f.,  335  f . ;  nature  of  the 
conception  of,  333  f. 

Uplines,  on  nature  of  a  Thing,  95  f. 

VOLKMANN,  on  development  of  space-con- 
sciousness, 231  f. ;  and  conception  of 
quantity,  301 ;  on  genesis  of  the  idea  of 
end,  369. 

WARD,  on  the  concept  of  space,  231 ;  and 
of  unity,  323. 

Watson,  Prof.,  on  conception  of  Force, 
437. 

Will,  as  the  reality  of  things.  70  f.,  123  f., 
132  f .,  289  f ,  439  f.,  506  f.,'  513  f. 

Williams,  Prof.  H.  S.,  on  heredity,  471. 

World,  the,  as  existent  in  time,  195  f.,  198 
f.,  204  f.,  207  f . ;  conception  of,  space- 
wise,  249  f.;  as  a  unity  of  force,  254  f., 
293,  413  f.,  517;  as  Absolute  Self,  405  f., 
411  f.,  493  f.,  501  f.,  517  f.,  527;  as  a 
Subject,  501  f.,  506  f. 

World-Ground,  conception  of  Life  ap- 
plied to  the,  204  f.,  250  f,  408  f.;  the 
Absolute  as  the,  493  f.,  506  f.,  512  f.,523 
f.,  527  f. 

Wundt,  his  analysis  of  an  object-thing,  117 
f. ;  on  category  of  relation,  167  f.,  291.; 
and  of  force,  261  f. ;  on  the  conception 
of  matter,  422,  445;  and  of  Infinite 
Spirit,  458. 


. 

PHILOSOPHICAL  WORKS 


OF 


GEORGE  TRUMBULL  LADD 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY  IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


GENERAL 

DESCRIPTIVE 

PSYCHOLOGY 


PHYSIOLOGICAL 
PSYCHOLOGY 


METAPHYSICAL 
PSYCHOLOGY 


Outlines  of  Descriptive  Psychology 

Svo.     Si. 50  net 

Psychology:  Descriptive  and  Explanatory 

Svo.     $4.50 

Primer  of  Psychology 

i2mo.    fti.oo  #£/ 


Elements  of  Physiological  Psychology 

With  Numerous  Illustrations.     Svo.     $4.50 

Outlines  of  Physiological  Psychology 

Illustrated.     Svo.    $2.00 


Philosophy  of  Mind 

Svo.     $3.00 

Philosophy  of  Knowledge 

Svo.     $4.00 


NOTE.  —  The  philosophic  writings  of  Dr.  Ladd  have  now  become  so  numerous  and 
are  so  widely  known  in  a  general  way,  that  the  publishers  take  pleasure  in  giving  them 
some  special  notice,  with  the  object  that  the  adaptation  and  purpose  of  each  volume  may 
be  better  understood.  It  is  believed  that  this  author's  "Primer  of  Psychology,"  "Out- 
lines of  Descriptive  Psychology,"  "Psychology:  Descriptive  and  Explanatory,"  "  Ele- 
ments of  Physiological  Psychology,"  and  "  Philosophy  of  Mind  "  form  a  continuous  course 
in  the  subject  which  surpasses  any  similar  course  that  has  appeared.  Naturally,  where 
several  books  by  one  author  treat  of  the  same  subject,  some  confusion  in  ordering  results, 
and  it  is  to  prevent  this,  as  well  as  in  the  hope  of  leading  to  a  wider  interest  in  the 
books,  that  the  following  description  has  been  prepared. 


GENERAL   DESCRIPTIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 


PSYCHOLOGY:     DESCRIPTIVE    AND    EXPLANATORY 

A  Treatise  of  the  Phenomena,  Laws  and  Development  oi  Human  Mental  Life 
8vo.    676  pages.    $4.50 

As  indicated  in  the  sub-title,  this  work  has  for  its  object  the  study  of 
human  mental  life,  and  is  perhaps  better  denned  by  the  term  introspective 
psychology  than  by  any  other  in  common  use.  It  is  a  general  treatise 
for  those  who  wish  to  gain  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject,  not  de- 
signed merely  for  use  as  a  text-book,  while  at  the  same  time  the  product 
of  one  who  has  taught  a  large  number  of  pupils,  and  embodying  much 
experience  gained  through  the  work  of  the  class-room.  The  size  and 
scope,  the  amount  and  kind  of  material,  and  the  style  of  its  presentation 
unite  in  making  it  a  suitable  book  for  mature  students,  as  those  usually 
are  who  begin  the  subject  in  colleges.  It  is  therefore  a  college  text-book, 
and  is  recommended  without  qualification  for  such  use. 

"  Professor  Ladd  has  presented  in  this  work  a  great  body  of  facts  on  all  the  important 
points  in  psychology,  and  has  subjected  them  to  a  keen  and  illuminating  criticism.  I  know 
of  no  other  work  that  gives  so  good  a  critical  survey  of  the  whole  field  as  this." 

—Prof.  B.  P.  BOWNE,  Boston  University. 

"  It  is  rich  in  material,  admirably  clear  and  well  arranged,  and  a  thoroughly  satisfac- 
tory introductory  book  for  the  student  in  this  rapidly  developing  field  of  study.  I  shall 
at  once  recommend  its  use  by  my  classes." 

—Prof.  J.  W.  STEARNS,  University  of  Wisconsin. 

"  My  impression  of  it  is  that  it  is  Professor  Ladd's  best  work,  that  it  contains  the 
maturest  and  most  independent  expression  of  his  views  on  all  the  principal  topics  in 
psychology.  It  is  a  distinct  honor  to  American  scholarship  to  have  produced  it." 

—Prof.  H.  N.  GARDNER,  Smith  College. 


PRIMER   OF    PSYCHOLOGY 

226  pages.    $1.00  net 


As  its  title  indicates,  this  is  a  text-book  for  elementary  students,  and 
was  written  by  this  eminent  author  because  no  book  in  America  had  been 
found  satisfactory  for  academies  and  high  schools,  and  for  a  large  class 
of  general  readers  who  might  find  some  pleasure  and  perhaps  more 
profit  in  reading  a  very  brief  and  very  simple  treatise  on  psychology. 
The  author's  success  in  his  undertaking  may  be  measured  by  the  fact 
that  within  eighteen  months  of  its  publication  six  editions  were  ex- 
hausted. The  book  will  be  used  the  coming  year  in  more  than  sixty 
high  schools  and  academies,  as  well  as  in  many  colleges  and  normal 
schools. 

CONTENTS: 

I.  THE  MIND  AND  ITS  ACTIVITIES.  VII.  HEARING  AND  SIGHT. 

II.  CONSCIOUSNESS  AND  ATTENTION.  VIII.  MEMORY  AND  IMAGINATION. 

m.  SENSATIONS.  IX.  THOUGHT  AND  LANGUAGE. 

IV.  FEELING.  X.  REASONING  AND  KNOWLEDGE. 

V.  MENTAL  IMAGES  Ano  IDEAS.  XI.  EMOTIONS,  SENTIMENTS  AND  DESIRES. 

VI.  SMELL,  TASTE  AND  TOUCH.  XII.  WILL  AND  CHARACTER. 
XIII.    TEMPERAMENT  AND  DEVELOPMENT. 


GENERAL    DESCRIPTIVE    PSYCHOLOGY 


OUTLINES  OF  DESCRIPTIVE  PSYCHOLOGY 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  last  few  years  have  witnessed  the  ap- 
pearance of  numerous  works  on  Psychology,  there  still  exists  a  need  for 
a  clear,  concise,  elementary,  yet  scholarly  volume,  adapted  to  class-room 
use  in  colleges  and  normal  Schools.  Dr.  Ladd,  who  has  won  an  inter- 
national reputation  by  his  many-sided  ability  as  author  and  teacher,  at 
the  request  of  many  friends,  has  written  a  brief  but  thorough  text-book 
of  Psychology  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  present  situation.  The 
unprecedented  success  of  Professor  Ladd's  more  advanced  books,  and 
of  his  "  Primer  of  Psychology,"  insure  widespread  popularity  for  this 
opportune  addition  to  the  apparatus  of  psychological  study. 


PSYCHOLOGY:    DESCRIPTIVE   AND   EXPLANATORY 

A  Treatise  of  the  Phenomena,  Laws  and  Development  of  Human 
Mental  Life.    8vo.    676  pages.    $4.50 

This  work  has  for  its  object  the  study  of  human  mental  life,  and  is 
perhaps  better  defined  by  the  term  introspective  psychology  than  by  any 
other  in  common  use.  It  is  a  general  treatise  for  those  who  wish  to  gain 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  subject,  not  designed  merely  for  use  as  a 
text-book,  while  at  the  same  time  embodying  much  practical  experience 
gained  through  the  work  of  the  class-room.  The  size  and  scope,  the 
amount  and  kind  of  material,  and  the  style  of  its  presentation  unite  in 
making  it  a  suitable  book  for  mature  students. 

My  impression  of  it  is  that  it  is  Professor  Ladd's  best  work,  that  it  contains  the  maturest 
and  most  independent  expression  of  his  views  on  all  the  principal  topics  in  psychology.  It  is  a 
distinct  honor  to  American  scholarship  to  have  produced  it.—  Prof.  H.  N.  GARDNER,  Smith 
College. 


PRIMER   OF   PSYCHOLOGY 

12mo.    226  pages.    $1.00  net 

As  its  title  indicates,  this  is  a  text-book  for  elementary  students,  and 
was  written  by  this  eminent  author  because  no  book  in  America  had  been 
found  satisfactory  for  academies  and  high  schools,  and  for  a  large  class 
of  general  readers  who  might  find  some  pleasure  and  perhaps  more 
profit  in  reading  a  very  brief  and  simple  treatise  on  psychology.  The 
author's  success  in  his  undertaking  may  be  measured  by  the  fact  that 
within  eighteen  months  of  its  publication- six  editions  were  exhausted. 
The  book  will  be  used  the  coming  year  in  more  than  sixty  high  schools 
and  academies,  as  well  as  in  many  colleges  and  normal  schools. 


METAPHYSICAL  PSYCHOLOGY 


PHILOSOPHY   OF   MIND 

An  Essay  in  the  Metaphysics  of  Psychology.    8vo.    412  pages.    $3.00 

This  is  a.  speculative  treatment  of  certain  problems  suggested,  but 
not  discussed,  in  the  study  of  psychology,  and  therefore  appropriately 
follows  the  author's  earlier  works  on  that  subject.  The  subjects  treated 
are  :  Psychology  and  the  Philosophy  of  Mind,  The  Concept  of  Mind, 
The  Reality  of  Mind,  The  Consciousness  of  Identity  and  the  so-called 
Double  Consciousness,  The  Unity  of  Mind,  Mind  and  Body,  Materialism 
and  Spiritualism,  Monism  and  Dualism,  Origin  and  Permanence  of  Mind, 
Place  of  Man's  Mind  in  Nature. 

JOURNAL  OF  MENTAL  SCIENCE,  London.—"  We  may  say  of  this  book  that  it 
is  written  in  the  author's  best  style.  The  destructive  criticism  is  in  places  markedly 
effective,  and  the  book  ought  to  be  widely  read  as  one  of  the  most  able  and  suggestive 
contributions  of  recent  years  to  the  literature  of  the  philosophy  of  mind." 

THE  DIAL.—"  Its  raking  attack  upon  over-hasty  monism  is  particularly  well  timed. 
Although  the  border-land  which  divides  Psychology  from  Metaphysics  is  partially  sur- 
veyed in  many  philosophical  and  psychological  works,  Professor  Ladd  has  for  the  first , 
time  brought  the  more  important  questions  within  the  limits  of  a  single  volume." 


PHILOSOPHY  OF   KNOWLEDGE 

8vo.    614  pages.    $4.00 

This  is  the  first  adequate  discussion  of  the  subject  by  any  American 
author,  and  naturally  will  attract  special  attention  aside  from  the  fact  that 
it  is  the  work  of  Dr.  Ladd,  whose  name  is  so  familiar  to  students  of 
philosophy  both  in  this  country  and  abroad.  The  book  appeals  to  the 
general  reader  by  reason  of  the  relation  this  subject  bears  to  questions 
now  so  prominently  before  the  philosophical  and  religious  world,  as  well 
as  through  the  broad  sympathy  of  the  author  with  different  phases  of 
thought.  It  will  also  find  a  place  waiting  for  it  as  a  text-book  for 
advanced  and  postgraduate  students  in  the  study  of  logic  and  the  laws 
of  thought.  Ministers,  too,  will  get  from  it  much  material  for  which 
they  find  a  constant  use. 

THE  PHILOSOPHICAL  REVIEW.— "It  would  ill  becomeone to  take  leave  of  awork 
which  must  lay  many  under  obligation  without  noting  its  broad  basis  in  a  knowledge 
carefully  garnered  from  many  sources  during  long  years,  its  candor,  its  striking  variety  of 
content,  and  its  suggestiveness." 

Copies  of  these  books  will  be  supplied  to  teachers  for  examination  or  intro- 
duction at  Special  Net  Rates,  regarding  which  correspondence  is  solicited. 


CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

PUBLISHERS  -  -  NEW  YORK  CITY 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


RECTD  LP 

DEC  1 7  1957 


LD  21A-50m-8,'57 
(C8481slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


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